IZettle forced to stop accepting Visa payments in Denmark, Finland and Norway

Swedish start-up iZettle, which provides technology that turns mobile phones into payment terminals, has been forced to stop processing Visa card transactions in Denmark, Finland and Norway.

In a message on its Web site, the firm's CEO Jacob de Geer says: "We are sorry to report that based on a policy decision by Visa Europe, we have no choice but to stop processing Visa card payments in Denmark, Finland and Norway on August 1."

Users in Sweden can still accept Visa payments while customers in the other three countries can take MasterCard. American Express is another option in Finland and Diners Club in Denmark and Norway.

De Geer has refused to expand on why Visa Europe has taken the decision to withdraw support for the PCI DSS compliant system but says: "We hope we can bring Visa card acceptance back to Denmark, Finland and Norway shortly and will of course keep you posted on the development."

Visa's rival MasterCard became an investor in iZettle last month while it has a stake in Square, which offers a similar product to the Swedish firm, although the two are not, yet, competitors with the former only operating in the US.

Related Companies

Mastercard American Express Visa iZettle by PayPal

Channels

Retail banking Payments

Keywords

Cards Mobile & online banking Eftpos

Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 30 July, 2012, 15:34

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Sounds as if what is good for the goose isn't good for the gander if you are Visa.

Aggregation of merchant accounts wasn't kosher until Visa invested in Square - then it was fine. Now Visa, when it sees MasterCard has an investment in the much more technoligically advanced iZettle, shuts down iZettle's ability to aggregate Visa transactions.

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A Finextra member 31 July, 2012, 10:28

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How come that Visa stops the iZettle payments in Norway, Denmark and Finland but keeps them up in Sweden? Are there more security or functionality challenges in some of the nordic countries than in other? Or are the Sweden more relaxed about the rules on chip+pin and payment security? Is Visa allowing the iZettle in any other markets?

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 31 July, 2012, 12:52

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Since Visa stands to lose interchange revenues as a result of this move, can't help feeling that it's going ahead with it only to stave off competition for the European launch of SQUARE, in which its has invested.

On another note, as long as nonbank mobile payment vendors use existing banking rails, they'd always be dependent upon banks and card networks for their very existence. This is a far cry from naive expectations that they'd disintermediate banks.