Square, a point-of-sale payment company owned by Jack Dorsey’s Block, has widened the expansion of its corporate card by officially launching in the UK.
After initial success in the US and Canada, the Square Card will look to compete with the likes of American Express who offer similar competitive speed of transaction settlements between merchants and readily available funds to access.
CNBC first reported that Square had completed registration for the Square Card launch last Wednesday (30 October), marking the first time the company had expanded its offering outside of North America.
Samina Hussain-Letch, Executive Director of Square UK, told CNBC: “When designing this product we went back to our mission of making commerce easy.
“We’ve had some great feedback about the benefits of having instant access to funds which really helps our small business sellers to run and grow, as we know that the number one reason small businesses fail in the UK is due to problems with cash flow.”
With the Square Card, UK merchants can personalise employee spending cards by adding company branding. Once onboarded to Square’s interface, merchants can then add their preferred digital wallets with the service offering no monthly and maintenance charges.
Designed to improve cash flow for small and medium-sized (SME) businesses, Square will look to simplify this process and offer an alternative to many of the predominant players that occupy the UK card industry.
With established players like the UK big four banks, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyd’s and NatWest, continuing to maintain a strong position as the preferred distributor of corporate cards, competitors like Square have increasingly launched their own corporate cards to challenge the big four’s position.
The launch of Square Card may come timely in the wake of the UK Chancellor’s increase on capital gains tax in the Autumn Budget on 30 October.
A tax increase on business profits was not met with optimism from some of the UK’s growing payment and fintech companies who rely on maximising profits to help scale their offerings to merchants and customers.
Speaking to Payment Expert, Greg Cox, CEO of Quint Group, reacted to the rise in capital gains tax, stating: “Bluntly, the new capital gains tax structure wont help to inspire entrepreneurs to take risks and build companies and will make attracting investment more challenging, even while maintaining the business asset disposal relief.”
More control over payment processes and access to funds, such as Square Cards’ offering, can serve to help small businesses resolve transactions at a quicker rate therefore meaning the ability to process more to improve profits.
