Square Opens Mobile Payments Services to Businesses with $Cashtags

Square CashtagSquare has opened up availability of Square Cash, its peer-to-peer mobile payment service, to businesses in the US.

Square Cash first launched for consumers back in 2013, but this is the first time it has been available to companies – who will be charged a 1.5 per cent rate charged for each transaction.

Payments can be made in the Cash app using the recipients phone number or email address, whether theyre an individual or business – but because businesses are unlikely to want to share this kind of private information, Square has introduced $Cashtags.

Cashtags are unique identifiers that can be tied to a users account, with their choice of name – Wikipedia, for example, has set up a $Wikipedia tag to accept donations – and are used instead of a number or address.

Square says it is processing more than $1bn (£670m) of payments per year via the Cash service, a figure that it is presumably hoping to increase dramatically with this addition.