In October 2015, amid rising fears about the security of credit
embedded chip verifies the transaction. While there is no
consistent method for measuring transaction speed, news
agencies report average chip speeds of anywhere from 8
seconds to 13 seconds.
The switch to chip readers was precarious, with many
businesses taping over the chip card slots in the terminals
until the kinks were worked out. Even after a year, some busi-
nesses still could not process chips and continued to utilize
the magnetic stripe for transactions. Financial institutions
thought the additional security benefits of the chips would
overshadow the added wait times. Yet a survey conducted by
Harbortouch in 2016 showed that nearly four times as many
Square Cash is an additional service available for businesses
5.7 seconds to 4.2 seconds (measured from when a card is
inserted to when payment is complete). They also announced
a goal of around 3 seconds for the final transaction time.
“We’re committed to saving time for our sellers and the
customers they serve. Conversations with business owners
should be about the delicious cheeseburger you ate or the
new haircut you just stopped in for, not the amount of time it
takes to pay for them,” said Dorogusker.
Square was able to tackle the problem of speed better
than others because they designed both the hardware and
software used in the payment operation. So engineers had
the opportunity to optimize the entire system to work better
CHAPTEr CASE STUDY:
Square, Inc.