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It looks like Amazon is about enter the competitive mobile payments space by introducing its own credit card reader.
That’s the assumption being made by 9to5Mac, which has obtained internal Staples documents that seem to show an “Amazon Card Reader” will go on sale in the near future for $10 (roughly £6 or AU$11) alongside existing card readers from Square, PayPal, and Staples’ own in-house brand.
Staples is slated to start advertising Amazon’s gadget on August 12, according to the document, which suggests the device could go on sale around the same time.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, stating only that, “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”
But an Amazon card reader is not too big a stretch, given that e-commerce giant just this week launched a mobile wallet app. Amazon Wallet, however, is still pretty barebones — for now it’s just a place to store select gift and loyalty cards.
9to5 Mac points to reports over the past year from various sources suggesting Amazon is moving into mobile card reading. And Amazon has long been eyeing PayPal’s digital payments crown — something clearly signaled by the introduction last year of “Login and Pay with Amazon.”
