What is Square?

The six-year-old payments start-up began by offering small, square-shaped credit card readers that plug into smartphones or tablets. The device helps small businesses easily accept credit card payments.

But Square has shifted its identity in the last year. In May, the company introduced Square Capital, a money lending program for small businesses that use Square. The company has promoted Square Cash, the smartphone app that lets users freely send money to one another’s debit accounts. And on Monday, the company will introduce two services — instant deposits and protection for disputed purchases — that Square says will make life easier for small businesses.

These moves all speak to how Square now wishes to be known: as a company building services for small businesses, buttressed by the huge amount of data collected from the millions of credit card swipes it processes daily. Whether the company will rise or fall largely rests on whether those services attract new customers, all while keeping the old ones happy.

“We have a huge competitive advantage,” said Roelof Botha, a Square board member and partner at Sequoia Capital, a leading venture capital firm that has invested in the company. “No one else has the kind of visibility we have into how these businesses that use Square are doing.”