All of those devices are child companies of either Banks or Credit Card companies. Or, like Square, owe their continued existence to banking and wall st firms dumping cash on them.
The one outlier I know about is Canada’s Interac system, which was started by Canadian banks, but now is its own thing
There are several layers between point of sale and the card brands and each layer is generally an independent company. Each of those companies makes or sells hardware and/or software that is used by the companies lower in the chain.
Square takes up several of these layers at once and charges much higher fees than other processors. The high fees and massive market coverage is why they exist, not because they’re chewing through VC funds still.
All of those devices are child companies of either Banks or Credit Card companies. Or, like Square, owe their continued existence to banking and wall st firms dumping cash on them.
The one outlier I know about is Canada’s Interac system, which was started by Canadian banks, but now is its own thing
That’s not quite true.
There are several layers between point of sale and the card brands and each layer is generally an independent company. Each of those companies makes or sells hardware and/or software that is used by the companies lower in the chain.
Square takes up several of these layers at once and charges much higher fees than other processors. The high fees and massive market coverage is why they exist, not because they’re chewing through VC funds still.
According to wikipedia, where it listed the many rounds of VC and bank finding they have, they haven’t yet made a profit
Square is owned by Block Inc who is a publicly traded company. They made $190m net profit in Q1 2025
And they lost 541 million in 2023.
And they were profitable in 2020 and 2021, what’s your point?
Companies lose money sometimes
Block Inc, with the outlier of last year, is a company that takes a not insigificant cut of transactions.
Until the end of 2024, they were not profitable to the tune of -605 million dollars. Thats my point.