US payments terminal vendor Verifone is the latest company to announce it will offer small businesses a dongle they can attach to a smartphone or tablet as a means to process payments from customers. Among the leading competitors in this market so far are Square and PayPal which both offer high profile products. Verifone’s product will enable merchants to process payments via either Apple or Android devices. The company is also launching an underlying payment-as-a-service platform called Sail which is part of the same package as the dongle and accompanying app. The announcement was made at this week's CTIA Wireless 2012 show.

Verifone argued in an interview with Bloomberg that its service will enable its partners such as banks to send coupons and loyalty points to consumers. Its dongle integrates with customers’ existing point-of-sale terminal, loyalty and inventory systems. The dongle and software platform is the first product from Verifone’s SMB Commerce unit focused on new small and medium size business.