FinTech News
Square Cash Reports Reaching 7 Million Active Users
When it comes to peer to peer money transfers, users have quite a few options. From the oft-cited Venmo to Apple’s recent Apple Pay Cash feature, these services have proven popular among Millennials, Generation Z, and others. Now one such app — Square Cash — is revealing just how many users it actually has.
As Recode reports, Square announced that its Cash app had seven million active users for the month of December 2017. Notably this means seven million people used the service to send or receive money during that month and does not include users who merely opened the app in that timeframe. During the month users also spent more $90 million using either the app or Square Cash cards.
Not only is this the first time Square has released user figures for Cash but their aforementioned rival Venmo has yet to make any such announcement, making comparisons difficult. That said, many observers suspect Venmo to be the leader in the space and, in August,Verto Analytics estimated that Venmo had 10 million users while Square Cash had three million. However Cash is currently the #1 free finance app on Apple’s App Store while Venmo sits at #4.
With Cash seemingly gaining steam, The Motley Fool reports that Square has some other monetization ideas for it the app. One of the plans Square CFO Sarah Friar hinted at was expanding Square Captial to individuals. Currently Square Capital offers loans to small business owners and has lent more than $2 billion since 2014. As Fool notes, “Square is already enabling small merchants to finance purchases for their customers through Square Capital. Using data from Cash App can help make better consumer lending decisions as well as open new ways to offer loans directly to consumers.”
Now that Square Cash has laid its card on the table, it will be interesting to see if Venmo and others follow suit. Furthermore Square has proven to be a fascinating FinTech to watch as they’ve never seemed afraid of starting auxiliary businesses that fall under the financial umbrella. With the potential Square Cash now shows, that “one-to-watch” status isn’t likely to change anytime soon.