Do SquareUp’s $$ Square?

Update 1May

Dorsey just tweeted Square’s numbers. See here on Tech Crunch

Looks like analysis below is directionally accurate, actually a little kind.  TPV moved to $2M on that day (of Tweet).

Note that Square revenue is $59k for the $2M TPV, or 295 bps. Transaction Margin is revenue less Square’s processing expense: issuer fees, processor fees. As listed below, this should translate into net square transaction revenue of $10k (note on my post last night I was wrong.. never post at 2am.. error rate is high).

Dorsey picture shows 9k active customers (merchants) on this particular day, which is again consistent with estimates below. Total Active is probably 3x-4x of this, so average transaction amount is probably around $10-$15.

Funny that Visa bought into Square on the same week that it rolled out new mobile swipe security standards. Visa is highly sensitive to Chase needs, and given Chase’s equity stake here they wanted to show support.

Could Square work out? sure it could.. but it is an intermediary solution at best as it is US only (No EMV), and will compete with new mobile solutions which we will see rolling out by fall.

Original post below

24 Feb 2011

Today’s TechCrunch Article

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/mobile-payments-startup-square-ups-the-ante-drops-transaction-fee-for-businesses/#

Following Square is a Hobby. My alarm bells go off whenever a non-payment team “innovates” in payments. My December blog Square Up Update  estimated that Square had 5-15k users. Today’s TechCrunch says Squares 1Q11 TPV is $40M and that they are “signing up” 100k merchants per month. My guess is that “signing up” means downloading Square on your iPhone.

From this TPV we can derive Square’s revenue and their “active” customer base

Rev = TPV * Transaction Margin

Transaction Margin = Merchant rate less cost of funds = 275bps – 225bps = 50bps

Square 1Q11 Rev = $40M* 50bps = $200,000

Rev lost from eliminating $0.15/tran fee = 0.15* 40M/$10 = $600k

Active Customers (Merchants)

Lets assume that average ticket size is $10 and average square merchant accepts 50 transaction per week (10/day, $6,000/ quarter).  This means that Square has 6.7k active merchants. For other iterations see chart below

Is Square really shipping out 100k doggles every month, while only 6-7k merchants are active? I have no idea, but it cannot be a good thing if they are.. see www.sq-skim.com.

Summary

• Square’s active merchant numbers are likely to be around 5k-30k
• Eliminating the $0.15 fee is a very big revenue hit… 1Q Rev looks like $200k now
• Square’s doggle is still not on the PCI compliance list (see PCI org’s list of approved applications )
• Just as in any merhant account, settlement funds are held to mitigate risk. Does a small merchant want to wait 60 days for payment and pay 3% for the priviledge of accepting a card? This is not a Square issue, but an industry issue in moving down market into cash replacement.  PayPal solved a real problem (CNP Transactions) for a real community of buyers and sellers that coordinated (eBay).

My guess is that Square sees the light at the end of the tunnel and knows it will not be a pretty collision. Evidently Square is burning through its newly received $27.5M (courtesy of Sequoia and Khosla) to grow the merchant base as fast as possible in hopes of attracting an acquirer. Square’s last round closed on a $240M valuation, assuming trailing revenue of $2.5M on $100M TPV, valuation is 16x revenue. However now that the /transaction fee is eliminated.. we are looking at 75% reduction in revenue and valuation on forward revenue is near 240x.  Believe or not.. OBOPAY was still more highly valued.. In both cases, investors have just doubled down and created valuations driven toward an exit strategy.. not on a sustainable biz plan.

The only entities that would be interested in Square are large card issuers who could unilaterally charge a different interchange rate for their own cards (ex Chase and BAC). But the bank business case for an acquisition would be very tough, as a single bank could only reduce interchange for the cards it controls, resulting in a 10% improvement in transaction margin (at best).  A Visa or MA acquisition would alienate the acquirers and processors. I just don’t see a logical exit for them with anyone. Issuers don’t want to pick winners in this space.. they want broad adoption. If JPM and BAC cut special interchange deals w/ Square then they will be pressed to do the same for PayPal.

eBay’s analyst day conference 2 weeks ago showed how aggressively paypal plans to move in the POS space. PayPal’s Virtual terminal not only lets merchants take cards with NO CARD READER, it has partnered with Verifone to act as an acquirer. Next month, we will see some super applications at APSI conference. One of which will demonstrate the current Nexus S operating as an NFC acquiring terminal. .. You don’t even need the doggle or the “signature”..

OpenNFC – Game Changer

24 February 2011

Monday I wrote about Apple’s “NFC Twist” and how a multi SE environment impacted MNO’s NFC business case. From Monday (I hate to quote myself.. but it keeps from following the link)

The champion of Multi SE architecture is Inside Contactless (OpenNFC).. a very very smart “Judo” move that leverages NXP’s substantial momentum (in integrated NFC/controller/radio) against itself. Inside’s perspective is that there is no reason for the ISO 14443 radio to ONLY be controlled via NFC (treat it like a camera). Inside’s OpenNFC provides for “easily adaptable hardware abstraction software layer, which accounts for a very small percentage of the total stack code, meaning that the Open NFC software stack can be easily leveraged for different NFC chip hardwalet multiple applications and services access it”. Handset manufactures love this model.. MNOs hate it. As I stated previously, closed systems must develop prior to open systems as investment can only be made where margins and services can be controlled. OpenNFC changes the investment dynamics for MNOs, and provides new incentives for Google/Apple/Microsoft, … to transition their closed systems into NFC platforms.

For Banks, Handset Manufacturer and Startups…

I cannot understate the importance of this approach.  My guess is that Apple, Motorola and RIM are all planning to pursue “OpenNFC” .  Multiple applications can now leverage the 14443 radio IN ADDITION TO the MNO controlled (SWP/SE) environment. Applications can then ride “over the top” independent of carrier controlled (TSM Managed) OTA provisioning.

In business terms, what does this mean? ISIS was founded under the assumption that it controlled the radio and all applications accessing it under NFCs  secure element (SE)  single wire protocol (SWP). Nothing could use the radio unless the ISIS TSM (Gemalto) provisioned it. Visa, Mastercard, Amex were all looking at a future where the BEST they could do was exist as a sticker on the back of the phone. In the OpenNFC model, the radio can be accessed directly through the handset operating system (assuming the OS integrates to the Inside OpenNFC controller).  This provides the ability for applications on Android and iPhone to access the radio. In this model, Mastercard DOES have the ability to get PayPass into the phone. My guess is that one driver of MasterCard’s hiring of Mung-Ki Woo from Orange was his unique perspective on how to make PayPass work within this InsideContactless model.

For ISIS? This is a tremendous impact to their business model. Perhaps something they cannot recover from. MNOs invested tremendous effort in developing NFC, now they are having their legs taken out from under them by a contactless vendor and the handset manufacturers. For ISIS to succeed they must run much faster and expand scope from a narrow payment pilot (over next 18 months) to building a platform that can compete AND interoperate against Android. Yeah.. that big. Their advantage is in control, security and provisioning. Unfortunately, because they have focused on the “control” aspect as the centerpiece of their  business model, they have developed no alliances. In this, ISIS may well follow the failure of Canada’s Enstream. A group that got all of the technology right but failed to develop a sustainable business model.

Start-Ups

Start building to OPEN NFC. Game IS ON. Assume that Android and iPhone will let you access the radio…. For a fee.

For Consumers

CHAOS. What do you do when 5 applications all want to submit your payment.. .or read an RFID.. which one do you use?  For a view on the mess this will cause, see the Stolpan whitepaper. 

I believe this approach benefits Apple much more than Google. Apple’s platform “control” and QA testing will be essential to getting this off the ground. My guess is that Apple will have only ONE NFC payment option.. APPLE PAYMENTS. Perhaps a gatekeeper model where multiple cards can be store but Apple collects a fee.

Although Apple has an advantage in control. Google has the opportunity to deliver a much better value proposition to consumers, businesses and application developers. I’ll stick by my Axiom that new networks must start as closed systems delivering value to at least 2 parties. But can Apple compete with its Gosplan (USSR State Planning) like controls against open Android?

Background

NFC Background for non-techies reading the blog, there have been many, many global pilots of NFC.. but no production rollouts. From my previous blog

What is NFC? Technically it operates on the same ISO/IEC 14443 (18092) protocol as both RFID and MiFare so how is it different? I’m not going to get into the depth of the technology (see Wikipedia), but the biggest driver was  GSMA/NFC Forum’s technical definition (UICC/SWP) that ENABLED CARRIERS to control the smart card (NFC element). This in turn enabled carriers to create a business model through which they could justify investment (See NFC Forum White Paper).