Intuit says it plans to take its system global, starting with Canada early this year, enabling small businesses to accept credit card payments on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch device.

The firm is also set to start shipping a free, newly-designed GoPayment card reader in both the US and Canada that will "increase the accuracy of each card swipe".

Chris Hylen, GM, payment solutions, Intuit, says: "We're taking two big steps forward today: announcing GoPayment in Canada, and releasing a new and improved card reader. This is part of our strategy to offer GoPayment internationally and to innovate in ways that make it easier for our customers, in all markets, to never miss a sale."

The Canada moves sees Intuit steal a march on Square, which also plans to expand beyond the US market this year. The start-up, founded by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, was claiming a million merchant customers by the end of last year and the OfficeMax and UPS deals mean that it is now being sold in around 10,000 stores throughout the US.