Square added to its string of new features for its Cash app this week, adding a direct deposit option for paychecks.
Square Cash has added multiple options for customers lately, including a much-lauded option to buy and sell bitcoin in a simplified form. Users don’t need to know, and seemingly aren’t able to find out, their wallet addresses.
Using Direct Deposit, you can generate an account and routing number that you can provide to your employer. This account and routing number is not associated with your bank account. This account and routing number can only be used to deposit funds into your Cash App.
Reception on Twitter was mixed. Some praised the service for adding new features, leaving Venmo farther behind, while others warned Square Cash deposits are not FDIC-insured.
In other words, a Square Cash account may resemble a full checking account, but is actually a prepaid account. Still, the news may make banks sit up and take notice of nonbank competitors functionally offering as much as — or more than — their checking accounts. (Hello, Amazon.)
I truly love the @Square team, but it still pains me deeply to see @Venmo falling so far behind in the payment app feature wars. https://t.co/j4r3qHR2KP
— Mike Dudas (@mdudas) March 7, 2018
The CashApp is fine for what it is, especially if one wants to dabble in bitcoin. But it’s a prepaid account, not a bank account. They both have their uses, but we’re increasingly seeing those lines blurred by those offering prepaid accounts.
— James Wester (@jameswester) March 8, 2018
Read more at Square, Wall Street Journal, and Engadget.