The Commonwealth Bank Is Launching A Square Competitor

Square hasn’t even launched in Australia yet, and already the Commonwealth Bank is running scared. The bank has plans this week to launch a small, portable mobile payments device to gobble up the small business payments market before competitors Square, PayPal, MYOB or local rival Westpac have the chance. Meet Emmy.

Emmy is a small, rectangular little gadget that allows you to scan, swipe or read chip payment cards. Emmy connects to your Android or iOS smartphone via Bluetooth, and subsequently beams the transaction back to the bank for processing.

The AFR reports that CommBank will charge you $30 per month to have an Emmy, as well as 1.5 per cent off the top if transaction value per month exceeds $1500.

That makes it cheaper than PayPal and MYOB, and a helluva lot cheaper than Square, which takes between 2.75 and 3.5 per cent off the top of every transaction. Having said that, Square does offer nifty receipts and a free reader. Swings and roundabouts, really.

Emmy will be launched tomorrow at a secret CommBank event, an which the bank is promising more consumer-facing announcements too.

We’ll bring you the event tomorrow. [AFR]


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