It seems the competition to be Mexico’s Square clone is heating up, with the makers of two Square-like products at each other’s throats — at least online.

The Mexican mobile payments product Clip was recently featured on TechCrunch in a story referring to it as “Mexico’s Square Clone.” The story featured good news: $1.7 million in funding led by Mexican venture capital fund Alta Ventures and new features, such as paying by installments and accepting American Express. Clip’s per-swipe charge is 3.6%, compared to Square’s 2.75%.

In the comments section, a poster named “Tyler Durden” — a common online pseudonym that is taken from the book and film “Fight Club” — posted the following:

Well, I think you have the wrong information, “Square clone” implies a set of features that Clip simply doesn’t have. If you are looking for a “Mexico’s Square Clone,” you need to look no further that iZettle. IZettle has already a strong presence in Mexico with a very good number of affiliated business (almost in the thousand’s, Clip has less than 100 retailers) and is feature-wise [comparable] with Square (Clip has very limited functionality).

Presumably this poster is referring to Square’s services such as its mobile wallet, online marketplace, point-of-sale system and P2P functionality. IZettle is a Swedish-based company with a reader that accepts EMV cards and has a large customer base in Europe, and, apparently, Mexico. The company recently made headlines for working to help the homeless in Stockholm accept donations using their reader.  IZettle’s base swipe rate in Mexico is 3.75%.

Adolfo Babatz, Clip’s CEO and co-founder, posted this good-natured riposte a few comments later:

Tyler (or should I say iZettle?),

It’s good that you consider yourselves a clone. You are copying Square and you measure yourself against their features. We don’t because we are not a clone. We are different.

I suggest you go and buy yourself a whole box of Pepto-Bismol or Losec; it’s good for heartburn. And, btw, you can pay for it in installments. Make sure you pay with Amex — the experience is awesome.

Cheers,

Adolfo (far cooler than Tyler Durden)

“Tyler Durden” replied:

I guess I hit somebody’s nerve with this numbers! So hard that it seems somebody can’t understand the meaning of “Reply”.

Bit of advice: if you really want to be “different,” stop following all the cliches from the SV culture.

And good luck with this Amex deal. You can claim a dozen merchants more to your customer base! =)

P.S.

Do you really think you aren’t a clone? Your investors and yourself commenting to an article titled: “Mexico’s Square Clone Clip …” and then claiming that “we are not a clone”  is kind of … delusional

Let the Battle of Mexico begin.