PayPal announces NFC-enabled card reader coming to Australia and the U.K. this summer, U.S. later this year

PayPal just debuted its new chip-and-pin solution, and it’s NFC enabled — making it one step ahead of Square.

The new capability means that PayPal Here merchants will be able to accept mobile payments from Google Wallet and Apple Pay.

At the Mobile World Conference, PayPal unveiled its new tablet-based credit card payment service capable of accepting payment information from chip-and-pin cards as well as near-field communication enabled devices. The new device will roll out in the U.K. and Australia by this summer and is expected to come to the U.S. later this year.

PayPal launched its first chip-and-pin reader in the UK in 2013. But last month, at the National Retail Federation Conference, the company promised to bring support for the EMV payment standard and contactless payments solutions to U.S. merchants.

“The entire commerce [industry] is being rewritten from the ground up, and mobile is playing a larger part in that,” said Anuj Nayar, PayPal’s senior director of global initiatives.

Mobile payment companies are ramping up product releases ahead of Visa and Mastercard’s deadline to switch merchants over to chip-and-pin cards. After October 2015, credit card companies will no longer be liable for fraud related to magnetic stripe cards.

Square first announced its chip-and-pin reader back in November of last year, and the company is expected to start shipping units to merchants this quarter. But Square has not yet released an NFC-accepting card reader.

PayPal hasn’t revealed how much the reader will cost, though the EMV device currently on the market goes for $107.50 (£69.95). It’s likely the new NFC-enabled device will remain in the $100-$200 range.