Square to offer lending for customer purchases

Square will begin offering loans to customers to pay for goods and services from merchants that use its payment system, another move by the company to push deeper into financial services.

Merchants in 22 states will be able to offer the installment payments on purchases of $250 to $10,000. The company’s lending arm, Square Capital, will cover the cost on the buyer’s behalf, the San Francisco company said last week. The lending service, which has been tested for the past year, allows buyers to apply online. If approved, they pay Square back in fixed monthly amounts over three, six or 12 months for purchases from $250 to $10,000.

“We think this provides small businesses with a level playing field,” said Jackie Reses, head of Square Capital. “Think about someone who needs to do a home improvement project, or even hair extensions they’d like to try. This product has a lot of examples of how a high-ticket item can be parsed out.” Over the past year, Square has processed 36 million transactions of more than $250, Reses said.

This initiative is part of Square’s efforts to expand beyond its core business of payments processing. Square Capital has played an increasing role in boosting the company’s sales and profits since starting in 2014. In the most recent quarter, it facilitated over 60,000 business loans totaling $390 million. Investors have backed Square’s efforts, with the company’s shares more than tripling to $96.96 over the past year.

The product puts Square into a crowded space of financial technology companies like Paypal and Max Levchin’s Affirm, which also offer installment loans. It’s also the latest move by the company to increase its relevance in the lives of consumers — not just merchants. Square recently rolled out a loyalty program connected to its Venmo-like peer-to-peer money transfer app, called Square Cash. It also offers a debit card connected to the Cash app.

Square has kept default rates low for loans to businesses by using all the data it has on the merchants through its payments srevice. With installment loans, Square will be exposed to consumer defaults.

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“We feel very comfortable with the type of risks we’re taking,” Reses said, given the credit information and external data sources that Square will be using to make its underwriting decisions. Square plans to hold the consumer loans on its balance sheet, but as it lends more, it could sell them to outside funds, as it does with its loans to merchants.

Borrowers who are approved are charged an annual percentage rate that can go as high as 24 percent. That’s in contrast to Affirm, which offers payments at an annual percentage rate of 10 to 30 percent.

Selina Wang is a Bloomberg writer. Email: swang533@bloomberg.net