Square Launches Two New Offers
- The US-based start-up has just announced the launch of two new applications: Square Register and Card Case. These solutions widen their range of payment offers on Apple products.
- Square Register converts the iPad into a POS terminal and provides merchants with new services: customising the interface according to their offers, analysing sales (over time, by type of customer, etc.), updating prices lists, accepting payment cards, creating electronic receipts, etc.
- The Card Case application enables the consumer to visualise products from his favourite stores, obtain further information or, for restaurants, have access to their menu. He can also receive customised discounts. This application is original as it creates a virtual payment card for each partner brand and enables mobile one-click payment.
- These two services are currently being deployed by about fifty merchants in Los Angeles, New York, Saint-Louis, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
- Finally, after Visa’s investment in its capital and the security issue raised by VeriFone, Square decided to enhance the level of cryptography in its magnetic stripe reader for mobile Apple devices. Exchanges with the acquisition processor will also be encrypted in compliance with the guidelines recently published by Visa.
- The recent figures published by Square on its mag-stripe reader for iPhone show that generates business: 500,000 micro-readers were distributed, three million dollars processed in one day and the US start-up intends to reach a billion dollars this year; it may then not be considered as a “young start-up” much longer.
- With these two applications, Square addresses both ends of the payment chain (merchant and final consumers) and positions itself on both payment issuing and acquiring.
- Also, Square’s offer bypasses the different obstacles hindering the development of mobile NFC payment–among these, the limits imposed by equipment cost and appropriate infrastructures.