Description
Square, Inc. is an American financial services, merchant services aggregator, and mobile payment company based in San Francisco, California. The company markets software and hardware payments products and has expanded into small business services. The company was founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey and launched its first app and service in 2010. It has been traded as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange since November 2015 with the ticker symbol SQ.
The original inspiration for Square occurred to Jack Dorsey in 2009 when Jim McKelvey (a friend of Dorsey) was unable to complete a $2,000 sale of his glass faucets and fittings because he could not accept credit cards.
Co-founders Dorsey—who also co-founded Twitter—and McKelvey began developing the company out of a small office in St. Louis.
The name "Square" derives from the company's square-shaped card readers.
In October 2020, Square put approximately 1% of their total assets ($50 million) in bitcoin, citing "potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future" as their main reasoning.
