IZettle, the Swedish Square (kind of), is looking at entering the U.K. market and is asking for beta testers. The company said it's planning to give away 3,000 card readers to British merchants looking to use their smartphones to process credit and debit transactions.

"The U.K. is a priority market for us and we are very excited about kick-starting this beta program with three of the major card networks: MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club," said Jacob de Geer, iZettle's founder and CEO.

The iZettle reader is "kind of" like Square in that it turns a smartphone into a payment terminal. But unlike Square, it doesn’t read a mag stripe; it processes EMV transactions by reading the embedded chip. The credit card information is completely encrypted and no information is ever stored on the device.

De Geer said the company has had a great response from Nordic users (the product is currently available in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland), and it's looking forward to feedback from small businesses and individuals in the U.K.

The company has signed more than 50,000 users since it launched last September. It received $11.2 million in Series A funding soon after its launch.

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