Square's Credit Card Payments Are Great, But Here's What The Company Actually Does Best

Speaking at the NYPay Unconference, an event organized by Consult Hyperion to discuss the world of payments and banking, author and entrepreneur Brett King took a moment to talk about Square.

"Everyone thinks Square's greatest accomplishment was turning a smartphone into a point-of-sale device," he said. "That's great and all, but the real achievement is in the way that Square's completely reinvented merchant onboarding."

It's a compelling point. It couldn't be easier to swipe a credit card through Square, but taking a credit through other means can be a pain.

If you want to start a business that accepts credit cards, you have to run around juggling agreements between banks, credit card companies, and yourself. They ask probing questions like "How much money do you have?" But Square does all that undesirable work for you.

You deal with them, they deal with everyone else.

Then you, as the credit card-accepting merchant, have more energy to throw into your new business.