Payments processor Square announced Friday that it will discontinue its monthly flat-rate pricing option in February 2014 and move all its customers to a 2.75%-per-swipe fee. This appears to be part of a strategy to bring larger merchants into the service. It’s actually 2.75% but less for higher volume merchants — more on that later. The company also announced it was working on new features aimed at larger businesses: “We are hard at work building features for larger businesses, because we know growth comes with its own set of unique needs. You can look forward to several useful new features in the coming weeks.” The company’s stated reason for eliminating the fee, which it said has no plans to restore, was lifting restrictions from customers: “Caps and limits in the program were inhibiting growth — at a certain point, rates went back up the more you sold,” read a statement on the company’s site. The processing cap was apparently $250,000, after which swipes were again charged at 2.75%. Cherian Abraham, the mobile commerce and payments lead for Experian Global Consulting, observed on Twitter that the move “could mean difficulty in moving upmarket. Merchants using Square for one-off payments aren’t its future.” Commenters on [...]
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