Square Offering Small Businesses Instant Deposit of Payments for a Fee

Square has debuted a new service specifically for merchants designed to help with a major problem—managing cash flow.

Square has enabled sellers to access the app and click a button for instant deposit of balances between $50 and $2,500, for a 1 percent fee.

This may seem like a tantalizing prospect for certain small business owners, having access to their money within seconds as opposed to waiting until the next day, what’s not to love? They would surely sacrifice the 1 percent fee.

Square is working to provide businesses with the chance to get their money even faster.

“The concept is to give merchants the working capital that they need to run their business in a very efficient manner,” said Brian Grassadonia who leads the Square Cash team. “We believe instant deposit is a competitively differentiated feature that adds a lot of value for our merchants. It’s not available anywhere else.”

Instant deposits works with most major U.S. debit cards, allowing the proceeds from sales to be deposited after ringing them up.

Risk-management is also at the fore of Square’s new initiative.

“We’re able to assess the riskiness of somebody in real-time and make a decision,” Grassadonia said.

Business owners who have a lot of weekend sales will benefit greatly from this service, they will no longer have to wait for Monday to get their cash.

“Settling funds over the weekend is a major advance for the industry,” commented Grassadonia.

There is no doubt that business owners will benefit greatly from this service.