How does payments company Block get value from owning both point-of-sale software business Square and peer-to-peer payments app Cash App? That was the number one question the payments company Block received during its initial public offering, Block Head Jack Dorsey said at a conference appearance in May.  

“You have the merchant relationship, but you also have a consumer relationship that you can build upon. You have both sides of the counter. There are very few companies that have that in commerce and payments,” Dorsey said at the J.P. Morgan global technology, media and communications conference. “I think we're finally positioned to do that and we'll see a lot of the proof points this year.”

Cash App’s head of financial products, Ryan Budd, may have dropped the first hints of Oakland, California-based Block’s plans during an interview last week with finance news site Tearsheet.

Budd said the team is working on “integrating a small business experience” into Square “and then incentivizing people to use it via Cash App.” He added that there is “definitely significant work being done to connect the two sides” with the goal being to make Cash App a consumer app for interacting with Square merchants.

Budd’s comments came less than a month after Dorsey had discussed the Cash App and Square integration during a first quarter earnings call. Block employees were working on “bringing our Cash App network and bringing the Square merchant network together,” Dorsey said at that time.

Block’s focus on bringing the two services together makes sense to Fitch Ratings Senior Director Robert Galtman. “They’re trying to own all sides of the consumer ecosystem,” Galtman said in an interview last week. “There's a lot of value in that, obviously, on every single dollar spent, they're making money.” 

Galtman also noted that Block would have access to consumer spending data, which it could use for advertising, like its rival PayPal announced last week it would. 

A Block spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s plans to integrate Square and Cash App, pointing to the company’s Q4 2023 shareholder letter. 

“With Cash App Card we see a considerable amount of Cash App customers buying from Square sellers,” the letter said, referencing a debit card connected to the payments app. “We believe there's an opportunity to offer Square sellers the ability to customize profiles in Cash App, that allows for better discovery and ordering for customers.”

By James Pothen on June 3, 2024
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