“Resilience has been the backbone of the Canadian food and beverage industry in recent months, as it adapts to COVID-19 restrictions. Now, restaurants across Canada can leverage the power of even more Square tools to their advantage and ever-changing needs. Launching in Canada, Square for Restaurants is an all-in-one specialized point of sale that brings the speed and ease of use that Square is best known for to all types of restaurants, breweries, cafés and bars.”

“Square, Inc. announced its industrial bank, Square Financial Services, has begun operations after completing the charter approval process with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Square Financial Services is an independently governed subsidiary of Square, Inc. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, its primary purpose will be to offer business loan and deposit products, beginning with underwriting and originating business loans for Square Capital’s existing lending product. Moving forward, Square Financial Services will be the primary provider of financing for Square sellers across the U.S.”

“Today, Square has launched its latest hardware offering, Square Register , a fully integrated countertop point-of-sale (POS) solution, designed to give UK businesses with complex needs the versatility they need to manage sophisticated operations. Right now, it’s not business as usual for many, and this new device is designed for businesses looking for a versatile countertop POS solution that can be adapted to suit changing needs. Square Register brings together modern hardware, embedded POS software which includes delivery & online order management, and Square’s secure payment technology.”

“Today, Square launched Shift Scheduling, a new first-party scheduling feature that works seamlessly with Square’s Team Management and Payroll offerings to create a robust, consolidated labor management solution for employers. Now, business owners have an all-in-one solution for scheduling, managing, and paying their staff with Square.”

“In June , Square announced on-demand delivery , allowing Square Online sellers to dispatch couriers through third party partners for orders placed directly on their website. Now, through a new partnership with DoorDash Drive sellers can tap into DoorDash’s nationwide network of Dashers as a new fulfillment option.”

“Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) announced today that it intends to invest $100 million in support of minority and underserved communities, driven by the company’s purpose of economic empowerment and its ongoing commitment to racial equity. The investment constitutes three percent of Square’s cash and marketable securities as of the end of the second quarter of 2020. Square commits to financial support for these causes in the future.”

“Today, Square announced the launch of two new features that enable Square Payroll customers and their employees to more easily and effectively manage their cash flow: On-Demand Pay for employees, and Instant Payments for employers. The new offerings, which leverage Square’s Seller and Cash App ecosystems, represent a major milestone in providing employees and employers more flexibility and control over their money.”

“Today, Square, Inc. (SQ) released a new report that highlights how the onset of COVID-19 has affected global commerce and payments behavior. This is the third installment of Square’s Making Change series, which examines whether or not we’re headed towards a cashless society. In February 2020, just 5.4% of Square sellers across the US were cashless*. By April 2020, amidst the height of shelter-in-place mandates, that number jumped up to 23.2%. By August 2020, as the world slowly began to reopen, the number of Square sellers with a cashless business model was showing signs of stabilizing at 13.4%. That said, there has still been a remarkable increase in cashless adoption rates compared to pre-pandemic.”

“Its peer-to-peer Cash App, a competitor to PayPal’s Venmo, helped drive Square’s performance in the second quarter. Gross profit for the app rose 167% year-over-year to $281 million. Stored funds, or the amount of money customers keep on the app, jumped 86% from the prior quarter. The app had 30 million users as of June, up from 26 million at the end of last year, according to the company.”

“Thousands of small enterprises that use Square to process their credit card transactions — including plumbers, legal consultants and construction firms — have complained that the company recently began holding back 20 to 30 percent of the money they collected from customers. The withholdings came with little warning, they said, and Square asserted the right to hang on to the money for the next four months.”

“Jack Dorsey announced in a series of tweets today that he is shifting $1 billion in his Square equity to create a fund dedicated to COVID-19 relief. The Twitter and Square CEO is calling the fund Start Small and posting a tally of disbursements and recipients in a public spreadsheet. Dorsey said in his announcement that the new initiative will shift the focus to other causes at some point, naming health and education for girls and universal basic income.”

“Square Inc. announced late Wednesday that it had received conditional approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to conduct deposit insurance related to an Industrial Loan Company (ILC) banking charter. The company also received approval from the Utah Department of Financial Institutions for this purpose. The approval grants Square the ability to operate a bank, Square Financial Services, that will be an independent direct subsidiary of the company. Its main objective will be to provide small-business loans for Square’s Capital lending business and to offer deposit products. The bank is expected to launch in 2021.”

“So the onus was on Square to show that growth wouldn’t again slip. And in the fourth quarter, as the company reported Wednesday after the close, it delivered. Year-over-year gross payment volume growth was 25%, the same as in the third quarter. This was despite the pricing changes implemented last fall that, on the whole, raised the amount the company makes from transactions.”

“In its latest pricing change, Square Inc. disclosed Tuesday that it will raise the cost of instant and same-day transfers from its merchants’ Square balances to their bank accounts to 1.5% per transfer from the previous rate of 1%. The change, announced on Square’s blog, took effect Tuesday for new users of the transfer service and will kick in Feb. 7 for existing users. Pricing for standard next-day transfers remains at zero.”

“If Square Inc. has made one thing clear in recent months, it’s that the company is determined to tie together two worlds most payments companies see as distinct: consumers on the one hand, and merchants on the other. That strategy took another step forward last month with Square’s announcement that its Cash App service now allows users to buy fractional shares of stock with no brokerage fees. The new service joins other features of the 4-year-old payment app, including the ability to buy Bitcoin. Added versatility like this will make the app more valuable to users, a base that includes consumers but also Square sellers, Jack Dorsey, Square’s chief executive, told stock analysts Wednesday afternoon.”

“Square announced today that you’ll soon be able to invest in stocks using its Cash App, and says you’ll be able to start investing with $1. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to buy a full share of Apple for a buck, though — you’re going to be investing in a fraction of a share, however much that $1 will get you. This concept, fractional share trading, isn’t quite new — you can already do it with some other investment apps, such as Stockpile or Betterment . It’s even something you’ll be able to do if your money is managed by investment giant Charles Schwab, which said last week that it would introduce fractional share trading to help attract younger customers.”