How will this affect Block? I'm joining soon and happy this was announced before my start date in case this news affects the stock but also wondering what it means for the future. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-27/apple-to-let-iphones-accept-credit-cards-without-extra-hardware? Apple has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100 million for a startup that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s NFC chip that is currently used for Apple Pay.
Square is just one part of Block and their Cash App is King! They have one of the best SMB business strategies out there
Peer to peer money transfers are possible on iphone right now yet Venmo and Cash app are still peoples preferred method it seems. I know this is slightly different but I wouldnt be surprised to see Square transition and focus on their other acquisitions Although that Doesnt mean there wont be lay offs in a certain division.
Android phones will still use square for a bit.
Our moat is more focused around the tooling that we provide to run a business. This includes things like customer management, scheduling, inventory, invoicing, banking, employee management, marketing & loyalty programs etc. Apple is a consumer focused company and I am skeptical that they will heavily invest in this direction
I’m a huge Apple fan - obviously - but Apple Pay Cash still lacks basic payment functionality and isn’t cross-platform. Things like that prevent Apple from truly killing any company. If anything, it might reduce Square’s hardware expenses and allow them to simplify their stack on iOS.
I'm not too worried. When it comes to processing there's already dozens of big competitors, in fact Samsung has supported this feature in their devices for a while. The real value of square is all the other merchant services you get afaik apple doesn't offer anything like that
I view this more as something to make iPhones more attractive to customers rather than an attempt to steal Square's business. This unlocks card present payment acceptance for Apple. That's a very low margin business. Probably not a major profit driver for Apple. But if it makes more people buy more iPhones (or iPads or whatever), that's what makes Apple money.
Apple is always extremely rigid and closed with their systems (esp payments). Not to mention the Apple Pay AND Apple Card UX / UI is horrid. Useless and unmaintained. Can't imagine how poor and featureless the integrations will be for their merchant app. I imagine it being literally the opposite of omni. They're never going to innovate with new forms of payments, crypto, etc. This is just a headline until they have 100k merchants. I imagine their unhappy customers being a great onramp for us. More validation for the seller team, woot! That said they sure as hell can make a laptop and a phone :)
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Square might end up being bought by someone else, just like Tile. No future for any hardware company integrating with iPhone.
Block is kind of big to be an acquisition target and they don't have any clear buyers like Zoom, Dripbox, Activision, EA, etc. Or I guess they could spin off just Square.
Not necessarily true. It’ll depend on Apple’s execution. Dumping money on a problem doesn’t fix everything, just look at Apple TV+. Apple has historically done well with consumer tech but this will be B2B and Square has a 10 year head start. There’s more to a merchant platform than just payments.