Square $Cashtags now let you set payment amounts right in the URL

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Ben Woods

Europe Editor

Ben is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional (show all) Ben is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional online poker player. You can contact him via Twitter or on Google+.

Square Cash now lets you send a direct payment of a specific amount to a person or organization using a ‘$Cashtag’.

For the uninitiated, a ‘$Cashtag’ is Square’s payment system for accepting simple payments over the Web via a customized URL. Before, you could just direct someone to your page, but now you can request a specific amount in the URL. These can be used for businesses, charity organizations or because you need to pay your friend back for that movie ticket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Y4pDr8iZY

For example, the URL cash.me/$wikipedia/10 automatically creates a $10 donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. If you want to create your own automatic donation, just swap your own $Cashtag in place of Wikipedia and set a dollar amount.

Making a payment just requires entering your card number, leaving an (optional) note and hitting the donate button.

It’s not a huge leap forward, but anything that helps reduce the friction of any Web or mobile payment is usually welcomed.

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