SAN FRANCISCO—Mobile payment company Square announced it has lowered its chip card read time to just two seconds.
The company says the industry average is typically between eight and 13 seconds.
“That makes Square's reader and register platforms significantly faster than standard card-reading technology for EMV cards, which have rolled out broadly in tandem with retail chip readers in the US over the last five years,” The Verge said.
The company's previous milestone was 4.2 seconds in 2016.
“Since chip cards arrived in the U.S., we have focused on making our chip reader fast for our sellers, and three seconds or more wasn’t quick enough,” Jesse Dorogusker, Square’s head of hardware, said in a statement. “Taking an EMV payment in as little as two seconds helps speed up the line for our sellers, gives time back to their customers, and reduces in-store fraud in the U.S.”
Square said it achieved its new speed by working with MasterCard and Visa to implement their respective M/Chip and Quick Chip technology. Square added the update “allows a cardholder to remove their card immediately once the reading is complete, without waiting for the issuer response.”