Square Cash has announced a new SMB version of its Square Cash, aptly named Cashtags. They are a unique identifier that enables anyone to create personalised names such as $ErinHills or $SunsetPhotography and get paid privately through Square Cash. $Cashtags can be posted anywhere to let people know they can pay you with Square Cash, either from the Cash app or on the website.

Square Cash deposits payments directly into your bank account (as opposed to a holding account), and offer an aggressive and affordable professional rate of only 1.5% – almost 50% of PayPal’s fee.

“We think $Cashtags are a fantastic marketing service that lets your customers, donors, fans, or even friends pay you quickly and securely. Many artists, musicians, and social media stars now accept payments with their $Cashtags. Curtis Kulig, a New York City-based artist known for his iconic ‘Love Me’ campaign, uses $LoveMe to fund new public art projects. Joy Cho, an avid Pinterest user and designer with over 13M followers, uses $OhJoy to accept payments from her various clients.

Even America’s leading non-profits — like Wikipedia ($Wikipedia), (RED) ($RED), Khan Academy ($KhanAcademy),The USO ($USO), and The Bay Area’s KQED ($KQED) — are using $Cashtags to use Square Cash for fundraising.” Brian Grassadonia- Square Cash Lead, posted on their website.

One main downside however that Jim Bruene at Finovate pointed out could be, at least for endorsing Square, and it’s potentially a sticky issue, is that “Square Cash/Cashtags is part of a larger payment and lending business being built by Square. It’s possible, but not all that likely, that at some point Square could be considered a material competitor to your core business. However, if you are not in the acquiring business, you have already opened the door for others to provide payment services to your customers. Square is probably less of a direct threat than Chase, Wells Fargo or other major merchant acquirers.

“ And regardless of whether or not you steer customers to Square, you can mine debit card transaction history. Personal checking accounts with numerous Square and/or PayPal transactions are likely being used by someone with recurring revenues. That’s your first clue there is a potential new business banking customer in the mix.”- Bruene said.

(image credit: GotCredit)