Square announced quarterly earnings yesterday and as a part of that announcement, shed some light on the growth of their P2P application, Square Cash. As Digital Transactions explains:
Square Inc. on Tuesday pulled back the curtain, at least a little bit, on its Cash App and the related Cash Card, a Visa-branded debit card. The app has 7 million active users, and cardholders spent $90 million using the card in December, good for annualized volume of $1 billion, Square’s top executives told analysts.
The San Francisco-based merchant processor and payment-services provider launched the Cash Card last June, about four years after the Square Cash App debuted as a person-to-person payments service. The company generated enormous publicity last month when it enabled customers to buy and sell Bitcoin using the app.
Square Cash is not strictly a P2P app, it is also a prepaid account with a Visa card attached. The ability to use a P2P app for making purchases is also available through Venmo and other market available solutions. This is blurring the lines between P2P transfers and payments. Consumers still have the opportunity to move cash they receive from other individuals with a Square Cash app into their checking account, or they can store those funds and then use the Visa card to make purchases at any merchant, including Square merchants. Square makes money on their app by charging a fee for a fast transfer of funds to a user’s account and Square will receive revenue every time the card is used, earning the most when it is used at a Square merchant. Oh yes, users can also buy Bitcoin, which Square admits is not a feature that will produce material earnings.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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