Two interesting piece of news have emerged from payments system Square over the past few days.
Firstly, it looks like they will be expanding their operations and become formally incorporated asabank in the USA. It seems that they have filed their application in tax for a bank operation licence. It will be known as Square Financial Services Inc., and will be capitalized with around $56 million in cash. The idea of starting out as a bank is so they can expand operations and services and offer loans and deposit accounts to small businesses.
“As we scale, it’s increasingly important that we have direct relationships with regulators,” said Jacqueline Reses heads up Square Capital and will be the new chair of the bank.
The second piece of news is also an expansion on there current offerings. Effective immediately, via its checkout and API, merchants using the checkout service on the web will be able to integrate Apple Pay and take payments online. As it stands, there’s no action to be taken if you use the checkout service and its going to be available now.
As Square have said on Medium: “Starting today, all Square Checkout sellers have Apple Pay on the Web support with no changes needed to your code. Now your customers can pay with Apple Pay through Square Checkout and complete purchases with Touch ID or passcode on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, so payments are faster and more secure than ever.” The Medium article also includes detailed steps on how to activate Apple Pay on your website.
Square is a significant payments player over in the US but it hasn’t seen much cu-through on this side of the Atlantic yet with other players enjoying a rather bigger profile. But these two moves do further emphasise that payments remains a field where there’s plenty of scope of development.
