The Salvation Army has announced that they are testing Square, a service that allows a smart phone to accept credit card payments. The test will take place at 40 locations in Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Previous attempts at accepting credit cards weren’t successful, but the Army is feeling optimistic that consumers will adopt this new way of paying.

From the NYT:

“The credit card terminals really haven’t been a blockbuster, I’ll be candid,” Major Hood said. “The winter elements have been a negative, people have to go through a process of entering data, and it’s just generally more cumbersome than we think Square will be.”

Of course, the idea of letting a guy in a Santa hat swipe your credit card information into his phone might just be weird enough that consumers will balk.

On the other hand, it seems to have worked for the Girl Scouts.

Bell Ringers Go Digital This Season [NYT]
[Square]

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