Square Ditches Its Mobile Wallet

As of May 12th, Square will no longer be offering its mobile wallet for download from either the Apple or Google stores, though they are now offering Square Order. This function will allow users to both pick-up orders from, and pay at  Square merchants right from their smartphone.

“Square Wallet provided a very magical experience but didn’t have a lot of the utility value,” Square’s Ajit Varma said in a recent interview with ReCode. He further noted in a follow-up phone call ““We want to make it really clear to people looking for Square in the App Store that Order is where we see the future.”

Consumer who already have the Square mWallet will be able to continue to use it, partially because Order was built with new backend technology, but new downloads will no longer be possible.

The decision to move away from the mWallet has been possible a long time coming for Square, the app hasn’t ranked in the Top 200 free Finance apps in Apple’s Appstore in over a year. The new Order service will also face challenges as competitors like PayPal and Tapingo already allow customers to place orders for pickup using their  smart phones. The new service will also come at a higher cost to merchants, Square will  charge businesses eight percent for these order-ahead transactions, as opposed to the 2.75 percent flat rate for most credit card purchases  run through the Square  platform.

One of the more interesting features of the Order app is its ability to learn consumers habits.

“One of the things we’re most excited about … is making almost a personal assistant for you,” Varma said. “We’ll know what you want, not only that you like coffee but coffee with almond milk. And we’ll make that one click away for you to order.”

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