The chip and PIN reader - which costs £49 - connects wirelessly, via Bluetooth, to a smartphone or tablet and works with a free app that lets merchants accept card payments and manage their business.



The firm is still offering its chip and signature dongle but says the chip and PIN offering - available immediately in the UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Finland - extends the technology to firms with "higher transaction volumes".

The move also helps to allay concerns voiced by Visa, which last year put a halt to processing transactions for several months over security fears. IZettle initially addressed the problem with convoluted workaround involving the sending of a text message, with an embedded URL, sent via the merchant to the purchaser's phone, with card details entered at a secure Web site.

It has now followed German rival Payleven in giving merchants a simpler option. Another upstart in the crowded app and dongle market, mPowa, last year ditched its signature offering completely, asking merchants not to use it and promising to replace it with a chip and PIN reader.

Jacob de Geer, CEO, iZettle, says: "After seeing a great demand and take up on our Chip & Signature solution, adding a Chip & PIN reader to our product offering enables us to extend our target group of individuals and micro merchants to include businesses with higher transaction volumes."

In a separate development, the Swedish outfit has bagged a deal with Santander, which will promote the technology to Spain's self-employed professionals and micro merchants as part of its Innova programme.

Francisco Fernández Cué, head, payments, Banco Santander, says: "In Spain alone there are more than one million self-employed, professionals, and micro-companies that, due to the mobile nature of their business, need an option that is more flexible than conventional card terminals."