While people hear about Square everyday there are plenty of other competitors in the market place. In fact Vantiv, is one of the largest credit card processors in the world
. That’s why AT&T has partnered with Vantiv to provide merchant services via smartphone and tablet to their customers.
These services from Vantiv and AT&T will come in the form of two different products, reports lightreading.com. The first product is Vantiv Mobile Accept from AT&T. This is a mobile app card reader similar to Square and Intuit. The reader attaches to a customer’s AT&T smartphone and connects to back end merchant services so that small businesses can charge customers using their credit card. The card reader, like Square, hooks in through the phones headphone jack.
Vantiv Mobile Checkout from AT&T is a tablet based processing service that can be turned into a full POS system with cash drawers, receipt printers, a stand and an encrypted card reader.
AT&T will officially be endorsing these products from Vantiv. They are also partners with Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile with ISIS mobile wallet. ISIS was introduced two years ago at SXSW as an alternative to Google Wallet however it didn’t have a nationwide rollout until this past November.
As far as mobile payment acceptance is concerned though, AT&T customers are still free to use Square if they wish it just won’t be endorsed by AT&T.
