On 24 October, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, will be bringing his new and disruptive start-up, Square, to Canada. Dorsey’s three year old venture is making Canada its first international market after it has taken the American market by storm from its San Francisco based headquarters. Square has been a darling of the technology sector for quite some time and offers users with smartphones the ability to accept credit cards through a tiny credit card reader that attaches to the headphone jack.
The technology is innovative and has the potential to allow even the smallest of businesses or one man operations to accept credit cards without investing in expensive credit card machines and complicated bank agreements. Square allows users to register for free and charges a 2.75% fee on each transaction. The start-up has been able to attract two million customers in the US so far and is helping transact US$8-billion per year. In a major win for the young company, Starbucks Corp. has stated that it will be using Square to accept credit cards at all of its coffee shops in the United States (TQ was on it).
Square’s Dorsey now has his eyes set on Canada and believes that his company has a chance to do very well North of the border. He thinks that the ability to easily and efficiently accept credit card payments on mobile devices will help Canadian individuals and businesses tremendously.
Dorsey spoke to the Financial Post and said, “We’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in Canada; a lot of people choosing to start their own business or start their own service, or really just do what they want to do.” He continued by saying that, “The major blocker that Square solves is enabling everyone to accept credit card payments. So anyone with a Visa and Mastercard can now pay anyone with a cellphone … we’re extremely excited to get Square outside of the United States and bring it to more and more markets, but Canada was the natural first step for us.”
Canadian users can accept Visa and Mastercard through the device and may be able to process other cards at a later date. For now they can register for free through the mobile application or get it at an Apple Store.
Square has tested out the Canadian market before they made the jump. The company has run a test project in Vancouver and Toronto to make sure there are no problems. Dorsey gives more details and states that, “In the United States about three years ago, we started with three merchants just to learn from them about what they needed. We’re doing the same thing in Canada, so we’ve been looking at a few merchants all over the country. Just to learn from them.”
The company does not have any headquarters in Canada but does have an employee based out of Waterloo.
Source: Financial Post
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