They seemingly don't. Which gives the current reader a, what, 2 year lifespan max? They shut swipe-based transactions down entirely at the beginning of 2015, IIRC. My Visa already is far more likely to flag a transaction as suspicious if it isn't chip-authenticated.

Between that and the total lack of Interac support, this is honestly a pretty lame offering. It feels like Square has absolutely no awareness of the current state of Canadian payment systems.

Visa debit is the norm in the US, and I have had immense difficulty finding anyone with a working NFC or Chip&PIN terminal at the cash register.

Canada is on the cutting edge of payment systems, for all that we have crummy shipping infrastructure.

Actually, our shipping infrastructure is fine. It's our geography, population density and relatively small population that gets in the way.

Square in Canada is good thing, and I'd say potentially far more disruptive than they were even in the US. Having been in a seat where I had to negotiate and deal with almost every payment provider in Canada, and all of them verging on being downright evil IMO, a service that focuses on the customer experience (both merchant and end consumer) will be a fun disruption to watch.

Wait, this is a big deal if swipe is being phased out. Very few us cards have a chip. That will make it impossible for US tourists to use cards in Canada.

To clarify slightly: Starting in 2015, if your card has a chip, the bank/credit card company will blanket reject all transactions authenticated by swipe. If you have a card from a Canadian institution, it will be replaced by one with both a chip and magnetic strip by that time (and it probably was years ago already).

If your card only has swipe (like US tourists), presumably their institutions will still accept a swipe as valid authentication.

What if you use a Canadian card in the US?

They detect that and use swipe-authorization in those cases. But you can, and probably should, use the chip in Europe/Asia/Latin America where chip readers are widespread.

The banks have been distributing FAQs with all of these answers for years, btw.

> But you can, and probably should, use the chip in Europe/Asia/Latin America where chip readers are widespread.

It's still pretty common to have 2-mode readers there (wehere you can chip or swipe), though they're slowly becoming rarer and I can't remember anybody actually using swipe.

It will be backwards compatible. :-)

They give the reader away for free, and it costs them almost nothing to make it. Who cares if it's only good for a couple of years?

If I'm going to use Square for my business, I want to know I'm not going to be changing horses frantically in 24 months when the strip is no longer an option.

The problem here is that Square is launching with, for the Canadian market, antiquated, rapidly approaching EOL technology, and given no indications if or when they'll catch up to the standard -- or even that they realize that their offering is substandard here compared to the US. Will they issue a new reader next month? A week before the deadline? Will they just pull out in 24 months?

No answers forthcoming.

(and that's on top of the other issues, like the vast majority of customers demand debit, and chip card credit cards that get swiped for transactions get declined at very high rates because it's highly correlated with skim fraud)

Your environment.

Almost all cards here have NFC, chip, and swipe

seriously? where are you located? I can't think of a place that doesn't use swipe.

Out of curiosity, where are you located?

Edmonton I'd say > 95% of retailers are chip-and-pin. Every other place I've been is about the same. Which given that there's two years until they turn the legacy swipe system off entirely, is about where you'd expect everywhere to be in the transition.

Nashville, TN (I realize this thread is about Canada, just didn't think swipe had gone the way of the dodo)

Ah. Payment systems in Canada are significantly different than in the US. Swipe has been on the way out for years, here.

why the downvotes? I was surprised that swipe isn't in other places, asked where he was located, and then said where I'm located. What's the problem with that?

I downvoted because the answer to your initial question is in the title of this post, and your wording was terribly provincial while not really contributing to the discussion. Just since you asked.

I was asking a question, and "Canada" is a big place. That is not the answer to the question. Also, just because the article is about Canada, doesn't mean we can't discuss payment processing around the world. There are people in this thread asking for support in Europe and Australia, there is no reason for me to expect every comment is pertaining to Canada.

Edit: also, while I'm not from Canada, I was there this summer and I had no problems getting my card swiped. Everywhere I needed to buy something took my card and swiped it. Hence my surprise.

Here in Vancouver, practically all retailers use chip and PIN.

But they all support swipe as well, if there's an issue with the chip (or if you put the card in backwards so it can't read the chip, and repeat until it gives up on you).

Personally, I'm hoping Square adds a new dongle with tap-to-pay (Paywave/Paypass/Interac Flash), which would be even more convenient.

> But they all support swipe as well, if there's an issue with the chip (or if you put the card in backwards so it can't read the chip, and repeat until it gives up on you).

For the time being, as a temporary measure while peoples cards are replaced with chip cards. Swipe is being fazed out entirely by 2015. You're already far more likely to get a rejected transaction or trip anti-fraud heuristics if your transaction is not chip-auth'd.

A lot of retailers I've been to require you to show government issued ID to prove your identity when your chip fails. Some downright refuse to accept your credit card.