Hi @RhysGiles,
Thanks for getting in touch and sorry to hear you're having trouble with your reader.
You're actually correct in your assumption that the swipe reader doesn't see a whole lot of use in Australia.
For context, swipe cards in Australia are almost redundant - the three payment types Square currently accepts (Visa, MasterCard and Amex) are all issued with chips in Australia, and part of the way chip security works is that if there is a chip on the card, it needs to be processed via chip rather than swipe (swipe can be used as a backup if the chip fails, which rarely happens).
The only remaining cards left without chips are your old school EFTPOS-only cards - savings/cheque account cards not linked to a Visa debit/MasterCard debit. Unfortunately these cards are not presently supported by Square, though we're currently working on supporting EFTPOS and will have more to announce here in the coming months. (As an aside, these regular EFTPOS cards will also soon all be issued with chips)
Why do we include a swipe reader then? International credit cards - If you ever get a tourist from a country yet to adapt chip technology on their credit cards, these will work via your swipe reader.
Hope all this helps shine a little more light onto what's going on with your swipe reader. Let me know if you have any questions!
Seamus
Square, Australia
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