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Verizon Wireless to sell Square's credit card reader for $9.97

Buyers of the device will also receive a $10 Square account rebate.

Shara Tibken Former managing editor
Shara Tibken was a managing editor at CNET News, overseeing a team covering tech policy, EU tech, mobile and the digital divide. She previously covered mobile as a senior reporter at CNET and also wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Shara is a native Midwesterner who still prefers "pop" over "soda."
Shara Tibken
Business owners will be able to buy the Square card reader at Verizon Wireless stores. Square
Verizon Wireless today became the latest company to sell Square's credit card reader, giving business owners another way to obtain the mobile gadget for credit card processing.

The carrier will offer the Square Card Reader at its stores across the country for $9.97, with a $10 rebate to a Square account. After plugging the reader into the headphone jack of a smartphone or tablet, users can swipe credit cards through the device to be read and processed.

Square has quickly been gaining popularity with small businesses and larger corporations. Starbucks supports Square's mobile payments in thousands of coffeehouses around the country, and it also sells the reader for $10 with a $10 rebate. Other locations where users can buy the card reader include Walgreens, Staples, and FedEx, among others.

Square said in November that it was processing $10 billion in annualized transactions. Just two months before that, the company had passed the $8 billion mark, and a year earlier, it was processing $2 billion on an annualized basis. Square charges 2.75 percent per swipe for Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, or 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for sales that are manually keyed in.