Square to Upgrade Card Readers with EMV Tech

Merchant services pioneer Square has announced an impending upgrade to their popular pocket-sized credit card reader set for release later in the year.

The improvement comes by way of EMV chip technology that will embed into their card reader. EMV, an acronym for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa refers to the chipset technology in credit cards and POS devices.

Banks in the US are beginning to roll out the new credit cards with EMV chips for their customers. The chip carries a “dynamic authentication” protocol that helps reduce credit card fraud. Retailers face a deadline of October 2015 to install proper infrastructure to accept the new chip embedded cards.

“There are more and more ways to pay, and with options like Bitcoin and contactless, customers expect to pay however they want; cashiers should never have to say ‘we don’t accept that’,” Square founder Jack Dorsey said in a statement Wednesday.

According to the product information, Square said that their new reader will be much smaller and faster than other credit card scanners and will cost considerably less. Unlike the original, the new Square won’t be free. The company has not announced any information on the price thus far.

Square’s new reader will also work with all iPhone and Android smart-devices, and is available for pre-order towards the end of the year.