Square has given this Tuesday the starting signal for its operations in Spain, offering companies throughout the territory its physical and digital tools to integrate and digitize multiple facets of the business. Although it offers it to any type of company, Square especially attacks the SME and self-employed sector by putting on the table a all in one which has a physical and digital payment platform, website, electronic commerce system, integrated management of store stock with online sales, a tool to manage customer reservations or claims, staff organization, electronic invoicing, data analysis of the company or kitchen management and home deliveries in the case of restaurants or cafeterias.
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The best example of what the company offers is perhaps its POS terminal, a device the size of a dataphone with a touch screen from which all the aforementioned tools can be managed in a portable way. Square also offers a counter terminal with a larger screen designed for establishments and another one smaller than the POS, with the sole mission of a credit card reader that allows micro-SMEs or freelancers to incorporate this function into their business. The company charges for these devices and also a percentage of each sale.
The company has presented at a press conference two success stories of small businesses that have participated in a testing period that has been carried out since last September. The owners of a craft brewery and a local bakery have exposed how the Square model has allowed them “very easy access to tools that were previously impossible to use.” “You can reach an audience that was impossible before, and control everything in a very precise way,” they stressed.
Square is a new financial technology company (or fintech) created by Jack Dorsey in 2009. Dorsey is also a co-founder of Twitter and was its CEO until last December, when he left the social network to focus on Square. The technology tycoon has become one of the prophets of the cryptocurrency movement and his first decision as Square’s full-time manager was to devise a matrix that would give an idea of where he wants to focus the business: he called it Block, referring to the technology blockchain that supports cryptocurrencies. The same movement that Mark Zuckerberg carried out with Facebook and Meta in reference to the metaverse.
However, Square will not bring to Spain the possibility for SMEs to charge in cryptocurrencies. “At the moment that part is more focused on the United States and is developing little by little,” Daniel Nicolas, Square’s head of sales for the EU, explained this Tuesday in a conversation with elDiario.es. “In the Spanish market we focus on digitization solutions for companies, although for the future our ambition is to launch any other solution we have in the US,” he added.
For bank customers
Square proposes a service that integrates tools that until now were distributed among several providers. Some of them are offered by banks, increasing the rivalry between new companies in the fintech sector and banking. For the time being, Square will not bring SME loans to Spain, in which it has already invested several billion dollars in the US and with which it competes directly with traditional banks. In exchange, it will attack the sector with aggressive launch prices. Its smallest device, the card reader, will offer it for free for the next few months.
“What Square offers cannot be found right now in the Spanish market,” said Jason Lalor, Square’s executive director for Europe, at a press conference, referring to the battle for customers that is now opening between his company and the banks. .
Spain is the third country in the EU to which Square expands after France and Ireland. “Spain is on a digitalization journey that we believe is faster than what will happen in other countries,” Lalor explained. “In Spain Square you will find a very promising market”, promises Xiana Méndez, Secretary of State for Commerce.
“SMEs must evolve at the same speed as the market and, thanks to fintech, they can do so easily, quickly and conveniently,” he added in a statement: “The technology provided by these technological financial companies guarantees innovative solutions in management of payments that can be decisive to support its growth”.
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