Banco Santander has made a EUR5 million investment in mobile card reading vendor iZettle.
The investment follows a deal announced in February, through which Santander agreed to promote iZettle's technology to Spain's self-employed professionals and micro merchants as part of its Innova programme.
Santander now says it will also market iZettle's Chip and PIN reader to small businesses in the UK and other markets across the Eurozone. The announcement follows new research that reveals 39% of UK shoppers are avoiding small businesses that don't accept payment by card, or require a minimum payment amount.
Ramón Tellaeche, head of Santander Cards at Banco Santander, comments: "Millions of small business owners and professionals in the markets where we operate need an alternative to conventional credit card terminals, and simple software to manage and analyse their transactions."
Founded in 2010, with headquarters in Stockholm, iZettle is now available in the UK, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
In December last year, Nordea Bank in Sweden announced plans to distribute iZettle's mobile POS reader free of charge to its small business customers. This followed funding rounds which added American Express and MasterCard to iZettle's roster of investors.
Jacob de Geer, co-founder and CEO of iZettle says: "We want to bring iZettle to the world, and to do that we must have strategic partnerships with the world's leading banks. Our relationship with Banco Santander is central to our transition from local to multinational services."