Ditch the plastic, pay with your phone

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.

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