The Moto in the Community Trust used an app that turns Apple devices into a credit or debit card payment terminal to take donations at its fundraising event earlier this month.

The trust was raising money for Help for Heroes at its annual corporate fundraising day, and used the iZettle app to turn two iPads into payment terminals to sell gambling chips for the casino in the evening.

Overall the day raised £4,500 for the charity with about £380 coming through iZettle payments.

Suzanne Hollinshead, event organiser and trustee, said: “For the evening party we wanted to make sure we were able to raise as much money as possible as we’ve lost out in the past by being unable to process card payments.”

But the charity could not justify the contract costs of a card-payment terminal.

She added: “Paying on iPad certainly got people talking and wanting to have a go themselves. It really added value to our event and meant we were able to raise more for Help for Heroes than we would otherwise have done.”

Hollinshead told civilsociety.co.uk that the only drawback was that the app was not configured to accept payments from Visa cards. She said: “If we had had payments from Visa cards we would have raised even more.”

iZettle has since made it possible to accept payments from Visa, as well as Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club. It is not possible to claim gift aid through the system.

The app is free to download and once users have created an account they are sent a free chip card reader. Without the reader iZettle charges 10p plus 3.5 per cent per transaction, with the reader it is just 2.75 per cent. It is available in five countries and officially launched in the UK in November.