Mobile Payments Firm Square Files For Multi-Billion Dollar IPO

Square, one of the mobile payments industry’s most successful players, is set to float on the New York Stock Exchange in what could be a billion dollar initial public offering (IPO).

The company, set up by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (who now holds the post of CEO at both) will float later this year, but the number of shares and price range are yet to be confirmed. .

Reports have claimed that Square could be worth as much as $6bn (£3.8bn), making it one of the largest technology listings for some time, with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley all facilitating the listing.

Making big

“We’ve built one of the fairest and most efficient payments businesses in the world,” Dorsey wrote in the firm’s filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“We made it possible to accept card payments in less than five minutes,” he added, “We intend to make this big!”

However Square’s listing will raise concerns about Dorsey’s ability to run two major companies at the same time, which may be part of the reason behind Twitter appointing former Google executive Omid Kordestani as its executive chairman earlier in the week.

This was noted in the SEC filing, which said that but warned Dorsey’s Twitter role “may at times adversely affect his ability to devote time, attention, and effort to Square.”

Since leaving Twitter in 2009, Dorsey has had great success in growing Square, which has offices in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia and aims to make it easy to accept card and online payments.

Earlier this year, the company announced it will be rolling out its Square Cash service to businesses for the first time, following continued success with its customer service, which was first launched in October 2013.Square hopes that the new service will allow everyone from charities to buskers to accept payments and kill of cash and cheque payments for good.

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