Square Mixes Bitcoin, Loans and Kiosks in ‘Open Roadmap’

Features enhancing reliability, tools for restaurants and expanded financial access are on Square’s product roadmap.

The business technology platform highlighted these upcoming offerings in a Monday (Aug. 25) article announcing that it has made its product roadmap public.

Willem Avé, global head of product at Square, wrote in the article that the company did so to increase transparency, build trust, allow customers to plan ahead and enable them to share ideas.

“Your feedback shapes this roadmap,” Avé wrote. “It shows how we’re acting on your needs and how you can grow with Square, whether you’re just starting out or expanding.”

Reliability is one of the areas Avé highlighted on the Square’s product roadmap. The company plans to streamline printer setup, enable offline payments by default and expand offline payments to more tools, according to the article.

Restaurants are another area of focus, with upcoming additions set to include combo meals, self-serve kiosks, centralized menu management across locations and channels, new back-of-house tools designed to improve order accuracy, the ability to automatically apply surcharges to credit card orders, and enhancement reporting, the article said.

In terms of financial access and choice, upcoming features include the ability for sellers to qualify for a loan as early as the first week they process payments with Square, the ability to apply for a credit card without pre-approval and the launch of Bitcoin Payments, which will include payments, a bitcoin wallet and the ability to convert a percentage of card sales into bitcoin, per the article.

In another article posted Monday, Avé wrote that by making its product roadmap public, Square aims to let sellers know what the company is working on, enable them to see what new tools and features it is developing, and see both the horizontal and vertical-specific features that are on the way.

“Square’s internal product roadmap has always been a living, breathing, evolving entity—and the same is true for the public roadmap as well,” Avé wrote. “We’ll update it every quarter going forward, and make changes or prioritization shifts based on what we’re hearing sellers need.”

Square’s owner, Block, said during an Aug. 7 earnings call that the company plans to expand beyond payments to help sellers of any size operate with the sophistication of much larger players.

As it does so, Square is leaning on its hardware, robust software and knack for making small businesses feel like they’re using enterprise-level tools, PYMNTS reported at the time.