Square’s latest payment service is as easy as sending an email.
To send cash to someone else, users set up an account through Square by linking their debit card to their email address. Payments are then sent via email — addressed to the recipient, with cash@square.com in the CC field and a dollar amount in the subject of the email.
One or two days later, payments will clear. GigaOM says if it sounds simple, that's because Square wanted it to be.
Square Cash has “no multiple verification steps, no entering checking account and routing numbers, no passwords and — most significantly — no need for a separate financial account to act as repository for all transactions.”
Sounds perfect, if you trust it. The Verge immediately wondered if email spoofing — forging the sender's address — might trip up Square Cash. It'd be like a blank check.
But Square’s product manager says it won’t be a problem. “When we built the product we were all thinking of the same thing. But the product is 100 percent secure. Nobody is going to get taken advantage of via spoofing.”
A claim of 100 percent security should rightly raise some eyebrows. But Square says it has humans and machines closely watching its transactions, and it will send text messages confirming transactions. If you or Square suspect fraud, the transfer can be cancelled.
Square has reason to hope users start adopting the service. As The Next Web explains, Square Cash hits a part of the market the company hadn't managed to address before. "It now has products geared towards consumers and independent contractors/freelancers, consumers and retail stores, and now consumers to consumers."
For being all about money, Square doesn't have grand plans to monetize its new service. AllThingsD reports it will offer paid premium options, like the ability to send money internationally, but U.S. transactions won't carry any fees.
Square Cash is available on Square’s website and through helper apps on the Android and iOS app stores.
- See more at newsy.com.
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