The head of Swedish payments firm iZettle has announced that it is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) following a 60 per cent leap in revenues.

The company, which allows small businesses to take payments using mini chip card readers that turn smartphones into cash registers, reported 2016 revenues of SEK 643 million (£59.1 million) against SEK 402 million (£36.9 million) the previous year. Meanwhile losses decreased by 23 per cent to SEK 228 million (£20.9 million).

Jacob de Geer, CEO and co-founder of iZettle, said: “We see a huge market potential as tens of millions of small businesses are still being underserved by traditional financial players. Going forward our focus continues to be building a world class company and preparing the company for a potential IPO.”

During 2016, the company acquired UK-based cloud based point of sale system IntelligentPOS and has since launched the service in eight additional countries in Europe and Latin America.

De Geer, added: “Last year was a great year for us, with revenues increasing twice as fast as costs for the second year in a row. Throughout the year we’ve remained focused on growth, investing in customer acquisition and expanding our product portfolio. I’m pleased to show such strong evidence of scalable growth.”

Founded in 2010, the Swedish company has introduced a new way for small businesses to take payments using mini chip card readers that turn smartphones into cash registers.

Since then the company has moved beyond payments to become a ‘one-stop-shop’ for commerce, offering small businesses tools to take payments, register and track sales and to get funding.

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