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I have no insight into Square's management or financials, but if I were Jack Dorsey, I would find it reasonable to operate at a moderate loss for a fair amount
by LyndsySimon 14y ago
I have no insight into Square's management or financials, but if I were Jack Dorsey, I would find it reasonable to operate at a moderate loss for a fair amount of time, before launching my own exchange system that bypasses cards completely.
Indeed, that seems to be the way they're going, what with _Pay with Square_ allowing for contactless, mobile-based payments.
First they disrupt card processing for small merchants with low transaction rates that just murder traditional merchant account fees. Next, they get themselves involved on the consumer side of the transaction, abstracting away the physical card. What's next? Why not do away with the card entirely?
How about _Pay with Square_ prepaid accounts? Allow users to fund their accounts via store-bought gift cards, or Dwolla, or perhaps even go crazy and accept Bitcoin. If they do that, then Square could give that 2.5% transaction fee back to the consumer, and profit from the interest on the float.
- gsibble 14y agoI agree that may have been a good strategy (and may have been their original strategy) but with $100m in cash from VISA, it's very unlikely they will launch a competing network. Also, all of Square's payments including digital ones still get processed over VISA/MC/AMEX and still have interchange. Getting rid of the card itself does no good to lower fees. Prepaid accounts would definitely work though. Again, Square probably isn't interested (and may be prohibited) from competing with VISA/MC though.
- LyndsySimon 14y ago> but with $100m in cash from VISA, I was unaware of this; that does make a significant difference.