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Accept credit card payments on your phone
Accept credit card payments on your phone
Square sparked a stampede into the payments by iPhone market

Credit cards can be a nightmare for small-scale or mobile business owners. But it's getting easier to take them, thanks to a wave of devices that turn mobile phones into swipe machines.

The splashiest is Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey's Square, a small gadget that hooks on to an iPhone or Android phone. Without having to set up a merchant account or pay monthly fees, small businesses can plug into the payment system. Other rivals in the space include VeriFone's PayWare, Intuit's GoPayment and North American Bancard's Pay Anywhere.



NEXT: Bump phones, swap $$
Last updated January 19 2011: 9:25 AM ET
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