M-payment Processing: Sharp Increase in Growth for Square
- Created in 2009, Square has developed its activities significantly since the beginning of this year, recording a 25% increase in the number of transactions between February and March 2012. This player has passed the 1 million merchant subscriber mark and has already processed $5 billion in payments via its platform (roughly $416 million per month).
- It is worth remembering that the platform valued at $1 billion in May 2011 charges a 2.75% commission per transaction and now ensures that funds are automatically deposited in the merchant's account the next day (compared to the usual 2 to 5 days processing time). One of the reasons for its success besides the current global development of mobile payment systems is the fact that no heavy investment in acceptance terminals is required.
Source: Bloomberg
- Faced with the arrival of an increasing number of competitors in the mobile card acceptance sector, Square is now up against hefty rivals including VeriFone, Intuit and also PayPal with its new PayPal Here solution which has succeeded very rapidly in attracting 200,000 retailers and the player forecasts a volume of $7 billion in mobile payments for 2012.
- With a very optimistic growth forecast ($170 billion worth of transactions by 2015, compared to $60 billion in 2011 according to Juniper Research), the mobile acceptance market is arousing great interest. Indeed Square is currently well positioned to move forward and extend the scope of its applications for example for managing fund collection for charities and political campaigns or with services adapted to taxis, snack bars, art exhibitions and farmers' markets to name just a few. Their idea being to stand out from the competition and get an early foothold in certain niche markets.