Square Rally Sees Firm’s Valuation Nearing Major Banks

With a rally in shares, Square‘s valuation is approaching the level of some of the biggest U.S. banks, Bloomberg reports.

Since May, Square’s market capitalization has almost doubled, now hitting $55 billion. That makes it higher than the value of Truist Financial and all but four of the banks in the KBW Bank Index, Bloomberg writes.

J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America still easily outpace Square, but the Jack Dorsey-helmed company is only around $20 billion away from being on the level of Goldman Sachs‘ $74 billion market value.

On Monday (June 6), Square stocks soared 13 percent after an analyst suggested the firm could eventually claim as much as 20 percent of direct deposit accounts in the U.S., Bloomberg reported.

The rising shares come amid growing optimism as digital payments become more and more of a fixture in American life due to the pandemic’s shift away from physical public spaces.

The popularity of Square’s Cash App, the company’s handling of pandemic-related payments from the government, and its propensity for generating deposits from traditional banks with fewer digital options have all helped to buoy its status in the marketplace.

In the wake of the pandemic-related digital shift, tech stocks in general have been doing well this year, with the tech-dominant NASDAQ-100 gaining 21 percent. Banks have seen the opposite kind of fortune, with the KBW Bank Index dropping 35 percent, Bloomberg reported.

Square recently purchased the Spanish mobile app startup Verse, which works in instant, cost-free digital payments. The company will continue to operate independently and work in Europe as it did before, PYMNTS reported.

And in late June, Square rolled out its new program to allow on-demand delivery for its online store. The feature allows merchants to send out delivery drivers for orders made on their websites. In that case, purchasers will receive mobile updates on their orders, and deliveries will be made by workers from delivery partners.