Square stands up for small retailers in the mobile era

US mobile payment processing outfit Square reckons its new stand will empower small businesses in a way that traditional financial services have failed to do.

Square was launched to much fanfare, thanks to being founded by the bloke who also founded Twitter – Jack Dorsey, in the US in 2009. The first product was a little dongle that you plug into the headphone jack of your phone that allows you to take card payments on it by swiping the magnetic strip.

None of that made it over here for a while though, with Square making its first appearance in the UK via a contactless card reader last year. We met Jesse Dorogusker, Hardware Lead for Square, and he explained that’s because they didn’t support Chip and PIN until then, with the US still reliant on the magnetic strip or even (shudder) those anachronistic carbon paper counterfoil things.

Now Square is adding a stand to its UK offerings, which is designed to support a tablet and turn it into an instant point-of-sale terminal. Before Square Dorogusker spent years heading up the accessories division at Apple and that influence is clear in the design of the stand and the card reader, both of which go hard on the smooth white plastic theme.

The whole bright idea from day one was to utilise all the powerful technology that was being put in people’s hands thanks to Apple and Android, to help smaller businesses get access to the latest, mobile-powered, financial services.

The barriers to entry for SMEs to get into modern financial services are too high and I would say that’s on purpose,” Dorogusker (pictured) told Telecoms.com. “The mainstream industry sees too much risk in serving small business owners and as a result they’re very underserved, especially in technology transitions where the introduction of additional ways to pay like contactless.

“The smartphone industry has done an amazing job of making incredibly powerful devices widely available at shockingly low prices for how technologically packed they are. We’ve built complementary pieces of technology that connect to these amazing devices and give consumer-grade experiences to small businesses.”

It’s hard to argue with the premise. Imagine the amount of sales lost by, say, stallholders at a music festival because potential customers have run out of cash. The Stand product also comes with point-of-sale software to use on the tablet and even a swivel base so the retailer can present the sale to the customer for approval. As advertised it give small businesses the point-of-sale power of much larger setups and that seems pretty compelling.

Dorogusker also thinks this is something the telecoms industry needs to be aware of. People have challenges with connectivity and we’re now in a world that requires an online connection to make a payment, verify it and issue a digital receipt,” he said. “A lot of networks are focused on peak speeds and not as focused on coverage. 75% of Square’s customers in the UK are outside of London, maybe not near a bunch of cell towers, and they need coverage – not ten bars, one bar will do.

The Stand product launched in the UK today and is on a half price promotion for a month. We’re now off to the street market on Tottenham Court Road where you can buy a delicious Thai green curry and rice with just a tap of a phone. Now that’s progress.