Yahoo Finance Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Square launches new product in the UK
Square (SQ), the payment company run by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is launching a new card payment terminal in the UK.
The US company announced the launch of the Square Terminal on Tuesday. The device, which is about the size of a thick mobile phone, can accept credit and debit cards and is pitched at small and medium-sized businesses.
The Terminal is Square’s third hardware product launched in the UK. Unlike its first two products, the Terminal does not need to be linked to a smartphone or tablet to function. The Terminal can also print receipts.
Jesse Dorogusker, Square’s head of hardware, told Yahoo Finance UK the new product was targeted at bigger, more complex businesses than its earlier products.
“The business owner is not going to hand his or her personal cellphone to all of their employees in all of their locations,” Dorogusker said. “This is for larger businesses.”
San Francisco-headquartered Square was founded by Jack Dorsey in 2009. The company makes apps and hardware that make it easy to accept payments and send money.
Square launched in the UK in 2017 and Dorogusker said it was “really happy with our growth and progress” in the market. He declined to share any numbers around Square’s UK performance, beyond saying three quarters of business comes from outside of London.
“It is a global phenomenon we see where in metro areas there’s pretty good service and coverage, but outside metro areas it’s getting worse and worse: banks leave town, cash points going away,” Dorogusker said.
Square Terminal will compete with rival European terminal startups like iZettle and SumUp, as well as most established providers such as WorldPay.
“There’s still half the businesses in the UK that aren’t served by some form of credit card acceptance so we think we still have a lot of room to grow,” Dorogusker said.
“Our founding principle was to bring credit card access to sellers and entrepreneurs and individuals who are excluded. There’s still a long way to go globally.”
The Terminal will cost £199, plus per transaction fees of 1.75%. The device does not require a contract with Square.
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Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech, and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at @OscarWGrut.
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