Before 2019 runs out, Square has announced that it will begin fractional share investments via its Cash App.
Financial services and mobile payment company Square has just announced a new investment feature that allows users to make even the smallest investments through its Cash App. According to the San Francisco-based company, people will now be able to invest in the stock market, taking part in full shares trading for as little as $1.
Via the Cash App Investing, users will have easy access to fractional investing and buy whatever fraction of any supported shares that $1 dollar (or any desired amount) can buy. According to a tweet from founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, pretty much anyone can by the smallest fraction of even the most expensive shares such as Berkshire Hathaway A ($BRK.A) – which currently sells for almost $315,500-, or even Tesla (TSLA).
Now anyone can buy $42 or even $1 worth of Berkshire Hathaway A ($BRK.A, or $TSLA or $SFIX or…) instantly and for free right in @CashApp. Really proud of the team for making buying stocks and building wealth accessible to more people. Rolling out now! 👋🏼 @WarrenBuffett! pic.twitter.com/5OcUxntPyW
— jack (@jack) October 24, 2019
Square’s new Cash App Investing is also going to be free according to the company; an inspired move that puts the feature directly in competition with some other services that have the same offering. Fractional share trading isn’t pioneered by Square or Cash App as there are some other services that already do that. But as with any other market that isn’t exactly brand new, coming in with a free offer might be enough to put the new product head-to-head with others. The tweet from Dorsey suggests that the Square team is really just focused on financial inclusion.
The new product is expected to increase the usage of Cash App which already boasts of a large customer base. In January last year, Cash App began allowing its customers to trade Bitcoin and the feature has been quite instrumental to Square’s profits so far. However, with the opportunity for its about 15 million users to trade stock especially at a very reduced fraction of the original stock price, Cash App will become sort of an “all-inclusive” platform with access to financial services spread across stock trading and digital currencies as well, among others.
The Square company is currently most popular for its services as a payment processor. The company also started Square Capital which allows small business owners to obtain business loans for their companies. At the moment, Square is also pursuing a bank charter in Utah, suggesting that it plans to add more services to compete with other already established banking institutions.
With CashApp Investing, Square is looking to take the investment market away from other big wigs such as Robinhood Markets Inc., currently valued at $7.6 billion (after its most recent $323 million funding round) which doesn’t offer fractional stock trading but charges no fees for its users. Also, Charles Schwab Corp., a major investment, brokerage and retirement firm, also announced recently that it will be removing charges for all options, exchange-traded funds (ETF), as well as American stocks purchased via its platform. E-Trade Financial Corp, TD Ameritrade Holding Corp, Fidelity Investments as well as Interactive Brokers are all firms which have removed fees for several of their services.
Cash App Investing will begin towards the end of this year.
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