Square’s $Cashtags let you pay people and businesses anywhere easily via the Web

Square introduced Square Cash in 2013 to go against Venmo as an easy payment system anyone can use to send some money over to friends and families.

Turns out companies liked the idea too, so Square has now made Cash available for businesses in the US.

As with Cash for consumers, payments are deposited directly into bank accounts with an intermediary holding account. Square is charging businesses a 1.5 percent fee for the service – just over half the 2.75 percent it charges for payments via its hardware devices. Non-business money transfers are still free.

To make it easier for businesses to market themselves for Square Cash payments, the company is also introducing ‘$Cashtags’ identifiers to let people quickly pay businesses from anywhere on the Web.

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

Clicking on on them will redirect you to a Cash.me URL – such as Cash.me/$Wikipedia –  where you’ll see information on the business or user and a prompt for how much you’d like to pay or donate. Of course, you can still use the Square Cash app instead.

It’s a small but notable advantage over Venmo, which currently has a pretty limited use set – person-to-person payments are quick and convenient if you’ve already been compelled onto platform by your friends, but few will use it for anything else. Cash.me URLs let users pay regardless of whether they’ve got the app, which could work out better for businesses.

➤ Square Cash is Open for Business [Square Cash]