Had Visa invested in Intuit or VeriFone, both vocal competitors of Square, it appears they may have been investing into marketing mediocrity.
Consider the options that Visa had in front of it.
First there is Visa’s own competing service with Square called In2Pay. There are others: Intuit‘s GOpayment and VeriFone‘s PAYware.
Face it, all these solutions seek the same Holy Grail: Convert the ~27 million small business who transact with cash or cash equivalents to electronic card payments. Converting a majority of these cash and cash equivalent (mostly checks) business to take Visa card payments would be a windfall.
All of these solutions pretty much work the same way. Some are considered more secure and more mature than others. It may even be logical to suggest that Intuit had edge because the visibility the company has into the small business arena though its accounting, payroll and invoice products. In the end, it may just be that Visa’s choice comes down to who is doing the best job of creating market mindset.
Figure 1: Google Trends comparing SquareUP, GoPayment, PAYware, and In2Pay
Visa’s own In2Pay appears to have zero market visibility. Square has the most. And if Google Trends is a valid indicator, it appears choosing anything other than Square’s solution would mean Visa could be investing in an also-ran.
Square seems to be on a roll. This investment by VISA comes on the heels of Square cutting a deal to sell its credit card readers in Apple stores.
