Square: Empowering Economic Inclusion Through Technology
At Money20/20 Europe this year, Square’s UK Executive Director Samina Hussain-Letch shared the company’s vision to grow its status as a pioneer in democratising financial services, furthering economic empowerment and championing financial inclusion – efforts that have been at the core of its mission statement since its founding a decade ago.
Samina expands on Square’s ethos: “When our co-founders Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvy first founded Square 10 years ago it was all about enabling anyone with a mobile phone device to accept payments.”
This simple idea represented a significant shift in the financial services industry. Traditionally, accepting payments was a complex process fraught with barriers, particularly for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. "You had to go to a bank, show historical statements, and invest in expensive hardware,” Samina recalls.
Square's innovation changed this landscape dramatically. Today, the technology has advanced to the point where, as Samina notes: “You don't need any hardware to accept a payment. You can just tap it on a phone.”
Company expansion marries personal growth
This focus on accessibility and simplicity has driven Square's expansion beyond payment processing. The company has built an ecosystem of hardware, software and financial services designed to lower entry barriers for businesses of all sizes.
For Samina, this mission resonates on a personal level. As a first-generation immigrant from Bangladesh living in the UK, she has witnessed firsthand the challenges of unequal access to financial services. “I've seen what it can look like to not have equal access, even in a thriving economy like the UK,” she says.
Square's approach to financial inclusion is particularly evident in its lending products. By leveraging technology and data, the company offers loans to businesses that might be overlooked by traditional financial institutions.
“We are starting to serve a population of people, whether it's down to the size of the business or the size of the loan, that traditional financial services players just don't have the appetite to operate in,” Samina explains.
This approach has significant implications for diversity and inclusion in business financing. Female entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses, who have historically faced higher barriers to accessing capital, are finding new opportunities through Square's products.
Leveraging tech to deliver economic empowerment
As a technology company at its core, Square is leveraging cutting-edge tools like artificial intelligence (AI) to further its mission of economic empowerment.
However, the company's approach to AI is not about creating flashy features. Instead, Square focuses on using AI to solve real, everyday problems for businesses.
“We've been using AI for years to really try and automate and simplify some of that,” Samina says, referring to the myriad tasks involved in running a business. “When we talk to small business owners, there is so much work involved in running the back office, running the admin, whether that's managing staff, managing inventory or setting up menus.”
What's particularly noteworthy is how Square presents these advanced technologies to its users. “We don't present it as an AI tool,” Samina explains. “We just say, here's a menu generator, we're going to make it really simple for you.”
This approach to technology - making it powerful yet accessible - is a cornerstone of Square's strategy for promoting financial inclusion. By simplifying complex operations and presenting them in an easy-to-use format, Square is effectively democratising access to tools that were once the preserve of large, resource-rich businesses.
As Samina concludes: “We talk to small business owners every day and we are really trying to simplify some of these very complex operations and present it in a really simple way.”
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