iZettle Launches in Spain. That's Seven Major European Markets For iZettle.

iZettle llega a España! Hope that Google Translate did it’s job and it really does mean that iZettle is coming to Spain. With Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, UK, Germany and now Spain, it means that the Swedish start-up is well on its way to conquer Europe.

The speed of expansion has been impressive. They launched in Sweden in November of 2011, by February they already covered the Nordics. In 2012 they came to the UK in may, Germany in October and now Spain. With 7 major economies under their belt, they only need Russia, France, Italy and Turkey, Poland, Netherlands and Belgium to cover the top 10 markets in Europe. Out of those, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and is definitely a very important addition for the company.

Some estimates show that around 23% of the GDP in Spain can be attributed to untaxed revenues. This means that a huge proportion of the population uses cash payments in their day to day transactions. In an attempt to control the situation, a law has recently been passed that limits the amount of a cash payment to €2500. iZettle, however is an electronic payment, so this could be a great solution for merchants. On the other hand, it might take a while to change the habits of consumers to start using iZettle instead of cash.

“Spain’s small business owners are hurting – they need a helping hand, and a easy, low cost way to start taking credit card payment so they never have to miss a sale because their customer didn’t happen to have cash,” said Jacob de Geer, co-founder and CEO of iZettle, whose mobile payments app and card reader has increased card acceptances places in Sweden with 25 per cent in just one year.

This news, however, does not change some issues that the company has recently been facing. Such as the visa problem and the newly found hack to solve it. This has been a very close problem for me personally as I ordered iZettle for my wife’s, Lakshmi Jooga Club (We have to support our own during ArcticStartup transition, besides you get to check iZettle in action there). However it has been sitting in the drawer since it’s arrival. According to my wife, the problem lies in the fact that most people use VISA and even with the workaround, it is too much of a hassle. Moreover she originally thought that iZettle can only be used for credit cards and not debit ones, which might be an issue in the communication with merchants.

That being said, we are very excited by this move and iZettle in general, this is a great tool for individuals and both small and large merchants. While writing the article, I did manage to convince my wife to give iZettle another go. Do you use iZettle in your business or personal transactions? If so, have you had any issues or great positive stories to share in the comments?