
Square Cash - Email money to anyone’s debit card - tylerreed
https://squareup.com/cash
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wiredfool
The page feels like the closest thing I've seen to a TV ad spot on the web.

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orangethirty
I opened the tab and missed the intro completely. Had to reload to see it
again. They could include a "replay" option.

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patrickaljord
They should be using the page visibility api and not play the animation until
you're actually looking at the tab
<http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/pagevisibility/intro/>

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kmfrk
It's not supported by Safari according to the article, though, which may have
dissuaded them from using it.

I, being the roundly-abused Opera user that I am, would obviously prefer that
they still served the "modern browsers" out there, while the others are
catching up. :)

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bcl
Come back when you have something to show us. Invite only w/o a way to request
one? Use email cc to send money? Seems pretty damn dangerous to me so you need
to explain things in a lot more detail.

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mikeevans
Interesting timing with Google launching the "send money with Gmail" at IO
last week.

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fjk
The invite-only nature makes me think that Square has been working on this for
a while, but since Google beat them to the punch they were forced to roll out
Square cash ahead of schedule

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owenfi
Anyone know what the fees are?

Standard would be a bit cheaper than Venmo for credit card, will they offer
free from a bank account in a similar manner?

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freeman478
It's 50c by transfer (payed by the sender).

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by_Seeing
Really? I wonder how they're justifying that when Paypal transfers are free.

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dmix
In Canada we've had debit (Interac) email transfers for a while now. Supported
by all major banks (and some credit unions).

It has a $1.50 fee.

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docs3
Anything that lets me not use PayPal is a good thing.

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blackdogie
Seeing as it's pretty easy to spoof an email address, I hope that they have a
BCC option with some secret email address i.e. 27272-adsa92@squareup.com .
Otherwise it could be pretty easy to send money on behalf of people.

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nadaviv
Or they could just reply with a confirmation link.

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codex
Likely they would only do this the first time you sent money to someone, or
depending on a score from their abuse prevention system.

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pbreit
Wow, does it literally work by cc-ing square on a regular ole email?

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alexobenauer
Hope not - it's easy to spoof the from address.

BCC'ing a secret stripe address would be OK, until you accidentally put it in
CC instead.

Edit: That said, finding a secure way of achieving this kind of convenience
would be pretty great. Really, the only way to rival Google's new attach money
to emails in Gmail feature.

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pbreit
If someone were going to attempt this, they would look at far more than just
the "From" address. There are a lot of email headers and other data points
that can help figure out the identity and authenticity of the sender.

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epylar
I see email spoofing being a problem with this.

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enricopulatzo
I hope that the email only initiates the transfer and that the approval takes
place either in the Square Register app or on their website.

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anologwintermut
How do they authenticate the other guy to get his money out ? all you have is
his email address. What do they do, hope someone can't see the auth-code you
send him via email?

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ahomescu1
I found this page that somewhat related to spoofing the source address:
[https://squareup.com/help/en-
us/article/5136-troubleshooting...](https://squareup.com/help/en-
us/article/5136-troubleshooting-square-cash)

Two interesting bits:

" _I sent money to the wrong email address._ If the recipient has not yet
redeemed their money, you may cancel the payment. If the payment has been
redeemed, please contact the recipient and request a refund, or let us know if
you're unable to resolve the issue.

 _I didn't make that payment._ Let us know if you'd like to dispute a charge
that you don't recognize."

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secabeen
So, essentially, it's the same as Paypal's free personal transfers, just done
through email with a after-the-fact confirmation. Shrug. I'm doing fine with
the paypal app today.

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joelrunyon
Not to be sarcastic, but this is the first time I've ever seen anyone on
Hacker News say that "they're doing fine" with Paypal.

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lotso
I've been using PayPal for 8 years now. Never have had a problem. I'm well
aware of their actions with freezing accounts, but I think it's a hard problem
when you deal with money and millions of users across the globe.

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SpikeDad
I just reached the limit on my account and am just too wary of Paypal to give
them access to my bank account.

Guess I'll have to find other ways. I am surprised that Square didn't at least
send out invites to their current customers. Funny I had to read about it
here.

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bhups
I see this as a pretty viable alternative to cash. I don't like carrying any
cash, and pretty much rely on my credit and debit cards alone. With this, I
can simply Square Cash via e-mail the few establishments/recipients that don't
accept credit card. And from what it looks like, it seems to be independent of
the sender's e-mail service (unlike sending money via Gmail). Neat.

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downandout
I assume they are processing the transaction as a refund to the recipient's
card? There isn't enough detail to understand what's going on there. This
looks like one of those "The investors made us put something up to start
building buzz even though it isn't nearly done..." type of things.

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wmf
It sounds more like an ACH. I read that there's a new API that allows sending
money to any Visa card (not as a refund) but I've never seen it used.

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downandout
It says "send to any debit card". That's different than "send to any checking
account". You can't ACH to a debit card.

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wmf
Except for prepaid, every debit card has a bank account behind it that you
could ACH to.

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downandout
Yes, and it says "any debit card" which would include prepaid cards.

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hayksaakian
Are you sure about that? Check the TOS. From everything I've seen online,
everyone hates processing prepaid cards.

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Fuzzwah
A little off topic, but it is the reason I excitedly clicked the link....
Anyone know the best way to ship money from a US account to an Australian
account? Working in the US at the moment but need to get some cash back home
to pay off a cc, really don't want to get screwed with fees.

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foxylad
I use ozforex.com.au. They build their fee into the rate, and still seem to
offer better rates than anyone else I've found.

Basically you pay into their US bank account, they pay into your Aus bank
account a day later.

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Fuzzwah
Just gave this a shot but apparently they aren't regulated in Arizona (where I
am).

I really do not want to grab my ankles and get screwed by paypal :(

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Acen
"Square Cash is only available in the United States at this time."

Anyone? Yeah sure. Keep thinking that.

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davidu
There are many key attributes of cash that this system, despite it's ease of
use, ignores.

I rarely try to be pedantic, but two _fundamental_ attributes of cash is that
it can be used without a transaction record and often anonymously.

Can this system?

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cheez
This is clearly a "we were out and you paid since I didn't have cash, here you
go" type thing. "Square up" not "money for drugs".

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davidu
But they called it "Square Cash" -- "Square Up" would actually be a terrific
name.

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cheez
Haha, I totally read it wrong.

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superchink
Anyone know how to request or receive an invite?

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aaronpk
Is it just me or did anyone else see a crazy guy run across the street in
front of the car in the video.

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by_Seeing
skateboarder?

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gc295
The simplicity of this process seems to be a big draw.

Anyone know how to score an invite?

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trevordixon
Alternative text: "Don't drive buzzed. Call a cab."

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grandalf
wow, amazingly clever and simple idea.

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HowardMei
Not something new. There is a company in China www.99bill.com started email
payment system 7+ years ago.

However, they failed to compete with www.alipay.com which provides free escrow
service and seamless ecommerce integration.

99bill had to abandon b2c market and pick up b2b & offline market.

Email as a ATM is not 'amazingly clever' if the transactions are not protected
by escrow service.

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fakeer
Dear devs, please do not bring your half baked or invite only apps to the HN
front page.

No, I am not doubting one of your Internet rights but people's time is wasted
and we(at least me) feel not good having to go to a page and face a smiley
saying you are not ready for me yet(or I'm not privileged enough to have an
invite) and you just wanted to have my attention from miles away!

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novaleaf
not only is it invite only, but i seriously doubt it's to "anyone". Only
people in the USA

