There is a lot being said and written about the feud between Square Inc and VeriFone Inc but now Square Inc is trying to justify that the system that they have developed is not something that consumers should worry about because it cannot be compromised. Earlier this year, VeriFone Inc, CEO Douglas Bergeron posted a video on the web claiming and showing that Square card readers are not safe and they can be easily compromised. On the other hand, Bergeron’s staff did try to successful hack the card reader in just few minutes after the video was posted.
This created a lot of news in the market as members of electronic payments community we upset with the kind of news coming in. Soon after that many blogs came up on the web that condemned VeriFone of trying to take over Square and that they purposely try to hack the card reader to ruin the reputation of Square Inc. However, soon after that one more person tried to successfully hack the Square card reader who was certainly not working for VeriFone. Square on the other end decided to reply to the video that was posted by VeriFone and said that hacking is something that has become common today, but Square makes use of secure server which prevents information leaking.
However, it is strange that soon after that Visa tried and invested around $100 million in Square Inc and said that soon Square Inc will follow the guidelines provided by Visa and that they are happy that Square Inc is working hard to follow the guidelines set by Visa. In May 2011, Electronic Transactions Association and Steve Wozniak said that they love the simplicity of the Square card reader but he never really talked about the security concerns that surround the card reader.
Square has already created new level of merchants and they are already in huge numbers because they can buy Square card readers from various different stores now. These merchants want free and simple ways to get discounts for the items that they sell and they don’t look at the security factor that consumers have to go through. With the help of Square card readers merchants don’t have to buy any equipments and get it on lease or rent. Square Inc has already forgotten about their security concerns because they recently claimed that all their servers are secured and therefore they don’t need to make any changes to their card readers. Although, Square has opened the floodgates of new merchants only time will tell if this cheap model will sustain in the market or will lead to some kind of revolution.