How can I take debit card sales in Canada?

[Joey2]

Will my business be able to do debit card sales without buying the new square machine being offered now?

[ashc]

Hi @Joey2 and welcome to the Community!

You have two options for taking debit card sales in Canada:

• Via the Contactless + Chip reader but only by tap for up to $100
• Via the new Terminal that has full Interac acceptance by dip with pin entry or tap and no $100 limit for dip/pin entry.

The magstripe reader only processes credit cards so that one isn't an option for debit acceptance.

I hope this clears things up!

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Update (10/22): Good news! I'm so excited to report that we're now able to offer full Interac acceptance in Canada! This means that you can accept chip and PIN payments using the Square contactless and chip reader. Learn more here: Debit Chip & PIN on Square Reader.

👉 Important Note: We're in the process of rolling out this feature and we'll finish sending out the updates later this evening. By tomorrow morning, you can expect that a firmware update will self-install the next time you connect your reader to your mobile device. After that, you'll be all set to accept debit chip & PIN payments. 👈

Thank you for your patience as we worked to unlock this request. Let us know if any questions come up!

[JillK]

What about taking credit cards over $100 with PIN Credit cards in Canada?? This is essential!! Thanks

[isabelle]

Hey @JillK! 

Just wanted to let you know that your customers can insert chip & PIN cards for debit transactions above $100, or tap contactless cards and mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay using our Contactless and Chip Reader. 

For more information on how to accept these payments, take a look at our announcement. Feel free to reply in this thread with any other questions! 

[sammills]

I’ve tried debit insert/pin transactions twice now. Both times, the system went to a black screen then came back online saying the transaction was pending, offering me the option to refund, but not to issue a receipt. For the second one it was for a friend who was able to check their account and see that the amount was withdrawn on their end already. Can you tell me what’s going on and how to fix this?

[Joe]

Hi there, @sammills - thanks for letting us know about this. Something definitely sounds off here. Would you mind reaching out to our Support Team? We can take a look into this for you. 

[Msterpin]

Hello square community. 

great product but I have one chief complaint that seems an easy fix. In Canada we cannot accept debit where the customer needs to input their pin.  Customers can however input a pin when they insert a credit card. Seems like an easy fix for something that can be frustrating to a customer who can’t pay and a merchant that ends up turning a sale away. I hope to see this updated in the future. It’s great that the new reader has the ability however sauté stand systems should be able to have this capability as well. Thanks. 

[AshleyK]

Hey there! I hear where you are coming from and the idea of turning away sales is daunting to say the least. I just merged your question with another post that I think will answer your question and help address your problem. Please see Tom's post above, I will copy + paste part of the message for easier viewing as well!

"Update (10/22): Good news! I'm so excited to report that we're now able to offer full Interac acceptance in Canada! This means that you can accept chip and PIN payments using the Square contactless and chip reader. "