It’s Not About Replacing Banks, Square CEO Says

It’s not about replacing banks, it’s about making financial services more accessible, said Square CEO Jack Dorsey in regards to what his company and others in the fintech space are doing. During his fireside chat-style address at Money2020, he bemoaned chipped card transactions for being so slow while defending their decision to go public when they did.

“It took us a long time to get [transaction times] down to under five seconds,” Dorsey said. Their goal is to get it down to 3 seconds, which is 7 seconds faster than today’s industry average. The payments CEO who is also the CEO of twitter, appeared to empathize with consumers on long wait times with chipped cards. People aren’t happy,” he said. “It’s really, really, really slow.” While more security is good, he argued that it has to be complemented by a frictionless experience for consumers.

Square Capital, their lending division, was hardly mentioned during his time on stage, which seemed more a consequence of his time allotment than its relative importance. The company funded $189 million to their small business customers in the second quarter. “Our goal is to make sure we’re helping our sellers grow,” Dorsey said. “As they grow, we grow.”

When asked if the timing of their IPO last November was the right choice, Dorsey said that going public should be viewed as an enabler, not the goal. “It’s an investment vehicle,” he argued while standing by their decision. Notably, compared to OnDeck and Lending Club, Square is the only one of the bunch to be currently trading above its IPO price. The stock recently closed at $11.15, up 24% from their $9 IPO on November 19, 2015.