Evidently, the owner of the domain "square.com" drove a hard bargain. How else could you explain a billion-dollar tech company, Square, using a domain name with "up" in it <squareup.com>?

Dorsey's Square had all the Google juice around the word, so it wasn't likely causing any lost sales. But for credibility, there is no choice but to own the basic .com version of your brand. (Plus, they would hate to get confused with the board game of the same name.)

It may not yet be a done deal. I don't see any confirmation of a sale on the Web. Square.com is currently being redirected, very slowly right now, to squareup.com.  And the  Whois record still shows that square.com is owned by Square Enix Holdings Co. Ltd. in Tokyo, the makers of the popular video game, Final Fantasy. 

It's not easy packaging banking products as holiday gifts. Prepaid gift cards are an obvious exception, though few banks actively market them online. And ING Direct's Sharebuilder has for years sold a beginner's investment package that's intended to be given to kids or grandkids (see Wells Fargo/Sharebuilder 2002 holiday email below).

This year, Square joins that short list with a gift-wrapped box containing its iPhone/Android dongle, used to swipe credit cards. You can order 1, 2 or 3 packages online at a cost of just $1 each for the gift wrap. The dongles are sent to the buyer who must distribute.

I learned about it in an email right before the Thanksgiving holiday (screenshot below).

Bottom line: While recipients may be a little less impressed once they find out these dongles are free online, overall I love it. It's really the payments advice doled out when giving the package that can make it special. 

Good idea and great email/landing page design: A

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Email received (22 Nov 2011)

Landing page (link)

Wells Fargo/Sharebuilder email from Dec 2002 (post)

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Note: We cover email marketing, financial website usability, payments and much more in our subscription publication, Online Banking Report.

In 15+ years of accepting credit cards, there have been few notable communications from our acquiring bank or payments gateway, other than normal transactional messages (note 1). Square looks to be changing that with a focus on merchant (and end user) experience.

For example, today I received an email outlining Square's latest platform enhancements (see first screenshot). The message included an enticing Open for Business with an invitation to watch a 70-second video outlining enhancements to its merchant platform, including built-in rewards capabilities (note 2). 

The company has grown quickly. Basically starting at zero at the beginning of the year, they are now doing up to $11 million per day in card volume. More impressively, they are up to 800,000 merchants. Assuming a $65 to $70 average ticket, that's around 150,000 transactions per day, or 4 to 5 million per month. But that also means the average merchant is only doing 1 transaction every 5 or 6 days. 

And the user experience is far from perfect. Square has suffered growing pains as it learns to manage a business fraught with fraud and uncertainty. We tried to use Square at Finovate last May and couldn't get transactions authorized, apparently due to tight account limits in force then.

Four months later at FinovateFall, most transactions were authorized, much to the delight of attendees who used it. But unbeknownst to us (note 3), the money just sat in the Square account waiting for us to confirm our bank account. One small test-transaction had been sitting there since May.

Bottom line: The company flat-out does a great job with design and UX, very Apple-esque. I expect to see a lot of innovation out of Square given its funding, valuation, and celebrity founder. The promise of turning transaction receipts into a dynamic communication is especially interesting (previous post).

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Email from Square (received 1PM Pacific, 15 Nov 2011)

Landing page (not logged in; link)

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Notes:
1. It could be that I've simply forgotten messages received years ago. But I can say for sure that there have been very marketing/customer service messages, because I pay attention to them. My acquirer is not one of the major players. 
2. TechCrunch has a good rundown of the new features.
3. In fairness to Square, they did mention on the merchant receipt that we needed to verify the bank account. But during the heat of the conference, I never noticed that. Click on inset to see the company's transaction receipt (highlighting mine).  
4. I wonder what it will take to convince Japan's Square-Enix Holdings, creator of Final Fantasy (video game) to part with the Square.com domain name (which is currently unused). 

During an an onstage interview at The Wall Street Journal's AsiaD conference, Jack Dorsey said he was working with banks to distribute Square readers/accounts directly to bank customers.

Since it was Honk Kong, I was thinking OCBC or HSBC. But it turns out the first financial institution (note 1) to take Jack up on his offer, is WV United FCU, a 5,000-member CU headquartered in Charleston, West Virginia. If that name sounds familiar, it's because it was the first financial institution in the world to implement mobile remote check deposit in August 2009 (previous post). WV United is also featuring Dwolla P2P/alt-payments on its homepage.   

• Square: The CU is promoting Square on its home page (see screenshot #1 below). Square is the first of five promotions that rotate across the top (see also Dwolla below). The promotion features the 2.75% merchant rate and uses the @square Twitter feed to make it more interesting. The landing page invites members to signup for Square and redirects them to the startup's webpage. It doesn't appear there are any official affiliate arrangements. But Square allows payments to be transferred to any bank account, so WV United members can have the proceeds automatically deposited to the CU account.
  
• Dwolla: The Dwolla connection is more integrated, with a co-branded online account opening page (screenshot #4). There is also more info loaded onto the CU's page including a short video, the @dwolla Twitter feed, and a features/benefits section.

Bottom line: No one is going to accuse 11-employee WV United FCU of not keeping up, innovation-wise, with the big banks. In fact, it's setting the pace in some areas, albeit in a more "bolted on" fashion (note 2). Granted there's little, if any, direct revenue from these efforts. But they also require no infrastructure investment. So, if they keep members satisfied and employees excited, then it's a win.

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1. WV United FCU homepage (14 Nov 2011)
Note: The credit union leveraged Bank Transfer Day for another 10 days (lower right). Smart.

2. Landing page for Square promo (14 Nov 2011, link)
Note: Square Twitter feed on right

3. Landing page for Dwolla promo (link)

4. Co-branded online account opening (link)

Notes:
1. They are the first that I've heard of. There could be others linking to Square in a similar fashion.
2. When I say "bolted on" I mean that the experience isn't integrated with other WV United online offerings. Integrated is best, but bolted on is a good way to test the market and keep costs down.
3. For more info on P2P payments and other topics, see our subscription service, Online Banking Report.

The browser was supposed to make web design simple, at least in terms of page layout. But it's always been tough to keep up with changing screen sizes, varying resolutions, and frustrating differences between browsers.

Liquid layouts that adjust automatically to the available screen real estate have been a huge help. But then along came the mobile browser, complicating everything both by their small size and by the two viewing modes, portrait and landscape. 

But it's not an insurmountable problem. Square is one financial company that's doing it right. It's website looks just as good on a 10-inch iPad2 screen as it does on a 24-inch monitor (see screenshot #1 to 4 below).

To make it work, copy and navigation options must be kept to a bare minimum. Square uses a catchy background image of its reader in use, then has an info box that "floats" depending on the screen size. It even works in portrait mode on the iPad (screenshot #4).

Of course, it's much easier to pull off for a one-product company like Square than for a commercial bank with dozens of business lines.

But even Square had to make compromises on its smartphone layout (see inset above). Instead of asking for contact info, the company simply instructs users to download one or both of its apps: Square or Card Case.

Relevance for Netbankers: We are about to see a flood of redesigned websites using new design and programming techniques (e.g. HTML5). Citibank was the first major U.S. bank to simplify its design. Discover just emailed users today with a sneak preview of its pared down design (screenshot #6). And it already had a relatively clean design (screenshot #5).

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1. Square homepage on 24-inch monitor

2. Square on 12-inch laptop

3. Square iPad landscape

4. Square iPad portrait

5. Discover homepage (current)

6. Discover new (coming soon)

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Note: We cover financial website and mobile design issues periodically in our Online Banking Report (subscription).

Despite the best intentions of governments worldwide, does anyone really believe that consumer financial services will become simpler anytime soon?

Yet, I've been intrigued by Bank Simple and apparently, so have many others. Evidently, Twitter/Square founder Jack Dorsey and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington talked about Bank Simple on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week.

While most articles are hopeful, first-mover skeptics have already posted counterpoints to the startup's "motherhood and apple pie" messaging (make sure you read the comments on Ron Shevlin's post).  

I can't remember any financial entity, other than those with celebrity founders (Square, Revolution Money, Virgin Money) receiving this much attention before it even launched (note 1).

I still don't know exactly what Bank Simple will offer. Certainly, they have a great name and a positioning that's right for the times. But can they live up to it? Basic banking really is pretty simple. You deposit some cash, earn some interest, then take it out and give it someone else. Rinse. Repeat.

Innovation often creates complexity
Banking got complicated only when new features were introduced. People got tired of going to the bank, pulling cash out of the vault, and hauling it around to pay people. So checks were invented. Payment became much easier, and personal security greatly enhanced. And as a nice by-product, the returned check was the first PFM tool, serving as a handy authenticated record of who was paid for what, when.

That worked great for a couple generations, but then too many people wrote too many bad checks and it started to become a slow and cumbersome process to identify yourself at the point of sale. So debit cards came along to speed the purchasing process, fight fraud, and return some fee income to the issuing banks (note 2). And the electronic records of merchant name and SIC code made record keeping even easier, originally on paper statements and now online.

Those two innovations, checks and debit cards, really helped consumers save time and hassle. But did they make finances simpler? Not really. Those payment services led to NSF/overdraft fees, PIN vs. signature decisions, card authorizations, check-hold times, float, authorization holds, chargebacks, annual fees, check-printing fees, positive pay, reverse positive pay, remote deposit capture, mobile remote deposit capture, Quicken, My Spending Report, Mint, interchange regulation. The list goes on and on.

It may not be simple, but no one (except visitors to this UAE hotel) is going back to carrying gold nuggets to the general store to buy crackers out of a barrel.

Technology MIGHT be the answer
Technology advances often bring wonderful, sometimes life-altering, benefits (think electricity or water purification), but often at a cost of increased complexity. As much as I love, love, love the Internet, it's not known for its overall ease of use. 

But there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon, and you are carrying it in your purse, pocket, or briefcase.

The smartphone.

I'm still amazed at my iPhone after more than 2.5 years of continual use (note 3). It's the one and only device I've owned that makes life better AND simpler, albeit at a hefty monthly fee.

And I believe mobile apps will ultimately make banking better AND simpler. Why?

• The phone knows who you are and where you are, vastly simplifying authentication at the point of sale and reducing fraud significantly.
• The phone (via real-time links to the bank and retailer) knows exactly how much money you have and what you are buying, virtually eliminating overdrafts and unknowingly overspending.
• The phone can provide an instant, secure way to pay any person or any business, with immediate settlement.
• The phone has built-in scanning capabilities for depositing checks, capturing receipts, documenting insurance claims, etc.
• The phone has access to every database on the planet to assist in shopping, evaluating, financing, insuring and closing any deal for any thing.
• And if you have a question about any of the above, just speak into the device and you'll get an answer in moments via voice recognition self-service.

So yes, there is hope for banking/financial simplification, and I think it will almost exclusively come through mobile apps with the occasional visit to an online mission control (note 4). So if you want to compete with Bank Simple, or Bank of America for that matter, get cracking on your mobile strategy (note 5).  

Notes:
1. Now that Twitter's Alex Payne has been added as a co-founder, Bank Simple could probably be classified as a celebrity-founded company.
2. I'm still using my first-gen phone bought in Oct. 2007. The battery is still very strong, the touch-screen virtually unmarked, system performance seems unchanged, and it only crashes a couple times every year despite being carried, set down, and tucked away day in and day out.
3. This is a vast oversimplification of the move to debit cards, but the point is they disrupted checks at the point of sale.
4. If you are still unconvinced that mobile will overtake online for banking tasks, here's a thought:  Consider how often you go online now to check the local weather. A waste of time -- right? -- when all you have to do is press a button on your smartphone. The same near-instant response will happen for basic banking info.
5. In our Online Banking Report, we've published several reports on mobile banking strategies.

After months of hearing about the iPad, I finally got my hands on one Saturday afternoon. It's a great piece of technology, but if you have an iPhone, you pretty much already know what it's like.

While the iPad runs all 150,000 apps available for the iPhone, developers are encouraged to produce iPad-optimized versions to take advantage of the significantly bigger-screen real estate.

When you open the App Store on the iPad, it focuses almost entirely on iPad apps. You have to do a specific keyword search to find non-iPad apps that work on the iPhone.

And I was surprised that neither banks nor credit unions are represented among the 30 Finance category apps available on April 3 (see screenshots below), a situation likely to be rectified with a flood of banking and credit union iPad apps during the next few months. It's definitely a place you want your brand represented (note 1).

The only big financial services brand that made it to bat on opening day was E*Trade MobilePro (which hit the store last Thursday), and another trading app, iStockManager, to be used with TD Ameritrade.  Bloomberg, too, had its popular info app available on day 1 (see screenshots below for all 30 finance apps).                                       

The biggest surprise in the iPad Finance category was Square, the much-touted card-to-card payments service from Twitter's founder, which released its iPad app on April 1 (see inset). We'll be testing Square this month and hopefully using it to take last-minute credit card payments at our upcoming FinovateSpring Conference.                                                                                  Square's iPad app

The 30 iPad finance category apps available on the launch day (3 April 2010)
(Note: Organized by "featured")
Page 1: Apps 1-12                                                     Page 2: Apps 13-24  

Page 3: Apps 25-30

Note: For more coverage of mobile banking and payments, see the most recent issue from Online Banking Report.