With Square In Its Sights, Intuit Readies A Tablet App For GoPayment

Intuit can pay it's user in 2-3 days. That's in comparision to Square who use 30 days. That's because of Intuits experience in fraud detection.

A post from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld has the whole story. Here is a part:

Mobile payments are finally taking off right now. But it is not mobile wallets for consumers with NFC-chipped mobile phones leading the way. It is payment apps for small merchants like those made by Square and Intuit’sGoPayment. Tonight at an Intuit showcase in New York City, I got a sneak peak at several new Intuit products still in development, including an upcoming GoPayment tablet app that aims to replace the cash register for small businesses, Intuit 401k, and an iPad Check-in app for doctor’s offices. 

The GoPayment app will work on both the iPad and Android tablets In addition to taking credit card payments with a swiper that plugs into the headphone jack, it also lets merchants set up a cash register with their own products and prices. They can even take pictures of the products with their iPad 2 and the picture is placed on a virtual button to make it easy for any employee to ring up the items. Square, of course, has its own iPad appwhich has been available for almost a year. Add a cash drawer, and these systems can readily replace a register that can cost thousands of dollars. All a merchant needs is an iPad and the software. Intuit and Square still make a tiny fraction off each transaction, but they get rid of much of the equipment, and all the maintenance, costs associated with typical credit card readers you find in most stores. 

GoPayment has been around for two years, but only recently started to target the lower end of the market where Square is gaining traction—small businesses without merchant accounts at banks who don’t already take credit cards. Another competitor, VeriFone, is making noise in an attempt to enter this market as well, but Square should be more concerned about Intuit. The company already has relationships with 4.5 million businesses through QuickBooks and has a few advantages in payments processing. 

The trick to making money in payments processing is to keep the fraud rate down. Intuit already handles payments for many small businesses through and has built up an expertise in fraud detection to the point where it transfer money to its payments customers in a matter of two or three days. Square reduces its risk for larger accounts by holding the money for 30 days. Intuit’s credit card swiper might be uglier than Square’s, but don’t underestimate how important it is for small businesses to get getting paid faster.