Hip To Be Square

Square, founded in 2009, is participating in the mobile payment market. Mobile payments refer to payments using a mobile device under financial supervision. This service is away from traditional payments such as credit cards, checks or cash, providing a high degree of ease to use. Square allows merchants to accept credit card payments with mobile phone using Square Register app and provides a more transparent fee structure and lower cost of entry. Its products include Square Register, Square wallet, Square Order, Square Stand, and Square Reader.
There are four primary mobile payment models in this market - SMS-based payments, direct mobile billing, mobile web payments (WAP), and contactless NFC payments. However, incumbents and competitors from MasterCard, Visa, MCX, PayPal, and QR Codes are making this market more innovational. Innovation and competition in this market continues at an accelerated pace, but consumer adoption lag behind the industry hype.1
Despite the majority of consumers acknowledge the mobile payments, security concerns remain the main barrier to adoption. It partially explains the gap between consumers attitude and market trend.
Therefore, mobile payments technologies must achieve a critical mass of consumers to succeed. Demonstrating and communicating the security of the technology consistently is going to play a big part in earning consumer trust. Square, as an issuer, would need to work together with retails and merchant like its alliance with coffee shops to make it successful. Currently, Square has built a partnership with Starbucks, which has resulted in a win-win situation since retailers would expand payment acceptance options via leading mobile payments to capture all possible sales and show customers their commitment in investing in a variety of secure mobile payment types. Besides Starbucks, Burberry and Cask, Square could continue its network and partnership, and expand to big retailers such as Walmart to get a bigger consumer base.