Latest news with #AmritaAhuja
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cash App adds tap-to-pay for iPhone
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. Cash App business customers gained the option to accept payments using an iPhone in recent weeks, parent company Block said Tuesday. Apple's tap-to-pay feature — which lets consumers pay by tapping their credit or debit card on a compatible payment terminal — is now available to businesses that accept Cash App, a Tuesday news release said. A Block spokesperson declined to say precisely how many companies use the Cash App business offering — a service that lets small business owners accept money through the payment app — but the news release said the figure is about one million. The spokesperson said Block began rolling out the feature over the last few weeks. Block's Beta testing of the feature found that merchants using the contactless payment method had a 35% increase in purchase volume compared to sellers who don't use it, the news release said. The Block spokesperson declined to provide more details about the beta test. Using the new tool lets sellers reach businesses outside the Cash App circle 'who use contactless debit or credit card, or a mobile wallet," Owen Jennings, head of business at Block, said in the news release. The announcement comes two months after Block reported earnings growth for Cash App that was lower than analyst expectations. Cash App's first-quarter gross profit grew 10% compared to the year-ago quarter. The company anticipated bigger growth in Cash App's earnings, Block Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja acknowledged at the time in a May 1 earnings call. Recommended Reading Cash App profits disappoint Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Block's CFO explains Gen Z's surprising approach to money management
One stock recently impacted by a whirlwind of volatility is Block—the fintech powerhouse behind Square, Cash App, Tidal Music, and more. The company's COO and CFO, Amrita Ahuja, shares how her team is using new AI tools to find opportunity amid disruption and reach customers left behind by traditional financial systems. Ahuja also shares lessons from the video game industry and discusses Gen Z's surprising approach to money management. Pentagon Pizza Index: The theory that surging pizza orders signal global crises What is a fridge cigarette? The viral Diet Coke trend explained 5 signals that make you instantly more trustworthy at work This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today's top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. This embedded content is not available in your region. As a leader, when you're looking at all of this volatility—the tariffs, consumer sentiment's been unclear, the stock market's been all over the place. You guys had a huge one-day drop in early May, and it quickly bounced back. How do you make sense of all these external factors? Yeah, our focus is on what we can control. And ultimately, the thing that we are laser-focused on for our business is product velocity. How quickly can we start small with something, launch something for our customers, and then test and iterate and learn so that ultimately, that something that we've launched scales into an important product? I'll give you an example. Cash App Borrow, which is a product where our customers can get access to a line of credit, often $100, $200, that bridges them from paycheck to paycheck. We know so many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That's a product that we launched about three years ago and have now scaled to serve 9 million actives with $15 billion in credit supply to our customers in a span of a couple short years. The more we can be out testing and launching product at a pace, the more we know we are ultimately delivering value to our customers, and the right things will happen from a stock perspective. Block is a financial services provider. You have Square, the point-of-sale system; the digital wallet Cash App, which you mentioned, which competes with Venmo and Robinhood; and a bunch of others. Then you've got the buy-now, pay-later leader Afterpay. You chair Square Financial Services, which is Block's chartered bank. But you've said that in the fintech world, Block is only a little bit fin—that comparatively, it's more tech. Can you explain what you mean by that? What we think is unique about us is our ability as a technology company to completely change innovation in the space, such that we can help solve systemic issues across credit, payments, commerce, and banking. What that means ultimately is we use technologies like AI and machine learning and data science, and we use these technologies in a unique way, in a way that's different from a traditional bank. We are able to underwrite those who are often frankly forgotten by the traditional financial ecosystems. Our Square Loans product has almost triple the rate of women-owned businesses that we underwrite. Fifty-eight percent of our loans go to women-owned businesses versus 20% for the industry average. For that Cash App Borrow product I was talking about, 70% of those actives, the 9 million actives that we underwrote, fell below 580 as a FICO score. That's considered a poor FICO score, and yet 97% of repayments are made on time. And this is because we have unique access to data and these technology and tools which can help us uniquely underwrite this often forgotten customer base. Yeah. I mean, credit—sometimes it's been blamed for financial excesses. But access to credit is also, as you say, an advantage that's not available to everyone. Do you have a philosophy between those poles—between risk and opportunity? Or is what you're saying is that the tech you have allows you to avoid that risk? That's right. Let's start with how do the current systems work? It works using inferior data, frankly. It's more limited data. It's outdated. Sometimes it's inaccurate. And it ignores things like someone's cash flows, the stability of your income, your savings rate, how money moves through your accounts, or how you use alternative forms of credit—like buy now, pay later, which we have in our ecosystem through Afterpay. We have a lot of these signals for our 57 million monthly actives on the Cash App side and for the 4 million small businesses on the Square side, and those, frankly, billions of transaction data points that we have on any given day paired with new technologies. And we intend to continue to be on the forefront of AI, machine learning, and data science to be able to empower more people into the economy. The combination of the superior data and the technologies is what we believe ultimately helps expand access. You have a financial background, but not in the financial services industry. Before Block, you were a video game developer at Activision. Are financial businesses and video games similar? Are there things that are similar about them? There are. There actually are some things that are similar, I will say. There are many things that are unique to each industry. Each industry is incredibly complex. You find that when big technology companies try to do gaming. They've taken over the world in many different ways, but they can't always crack the nut on putting out a great game. Similarly, some of the largest technology companies have dabbled in fintech but haven't been able to go as deep, so they're both very nuanced and complex industries. I would say another similarity is that design really matters. Industrial design, the design of products, the interface of products, is absolutely mission-critical to a great game, and it's absolutely mission-critical to the simplicity and accessibility of our products, be it on Square or Cash App. And then maybe the third thing that I would say is that when I was in gaming, at least the business models were rapidly changing from an intermediary distribution mechanism, like releasing a game once and then selling it through a retailer, to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. And similarly with banking, people don't want to bank from 9 to 5, six days a week. They want 24/7 access to their money and the ability to, again, grow their financial livelihood, move their money around seamlessly. So, some similarities are there in that shift to an intermediary model or a slower model to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. Part of your target audience or your target customer base at Block are Gen Z folks. Did you learn things at Activision about Gen Z that has been useful? Are there things that businesses misunderstand about younger generations still? What we've learned is that Gen Z, millennial customers, aren't going to do things the way their parents did. Some of our stats show that 63% of Gen Z customers have moved away from traditional credit cards, and over 80% are skeptical of them. Which means they're not using a credit card to manage expenses; they're using a debit card, but then layering on on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Or again, using tools like buy now, pay later, or Cash App Borrow, the means in which they're managing their consistent cash flows. So that's an example of how things are changing, and you've got to get up to speed with how the next generation of customers expects to manage their money. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter:
Fast Company
16-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Block's CFO explains Gen Z's surprising approach to money management
One stock recently impacted by a whirlwind of volatility is Block—the fintech powerhouse behind Square, Cash App, Tidal Music, and more. The company's COO and CFO, Amrita Ahuja, shares how her team is using new AI tools to find opportunity amid disruption and reach customers left behind by traditional financial systems. Ahuja also shares lessons from the video game industry and discusses Gen Z's surprising approach to money management. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today's top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. As a leader, when you're looking at all of this volatility—the tariffs, consumer sentiment's been unclear, the stock market's been all over the place. You guys had a huge one-day drop in early May, and it quickly bounced back. How do you make sense of all these external factors? Yeah, our focus is on what we can control. And ultimately, the thing that we are laser-focused on for our business is product velocity. How quickly can we start small with something, launch something for our customers, and then test and iterate and learn so that ultimately, that something that we've launched scales into an important product? I'll give you an example. Cash App Borrow, which is a product where our customers can get access to a line of credit, often $100, $200, that bridges them from paycheck to paycheck. We know so many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That's a product that we launched about three years ago and have now scaled to serve 9 million actives with $15 billion in credit supply to our customers in a span of a couple short years. The more we can be out testing and launching product at a pace, the more we know we are ultimately delivering value to our customers, and the right things will happen from a stock perspective. Block is a financial services provider. You have Square, the point-of-sale system; the digital wallet Cash App, which you mentioned, which competes with Venmo and Robinhood; and a bunch of others. Then you've got the buy-now, pay-later leader Afterpay. You chair Square Financial Services, which is Block's chartered bank. But you've said that in the fintech world, Block is only a little bit fin—that comparatively, it's more tech. Can you explain what you mean by that? What we think is unique about us is our ability as a technology company to completely change innovation in the space, such that we can help solve systemic issues across credit, payments, commerce, and banking. What that means ultimately is we use technologies like AI and machine learning and data science, and we use these technologies in a unique way, in a way that's different from a traditional bank. We are able to underwrite those who are often frankly forgotten by the traditional financial ecosystems. Our Square Loans product has almost triple the rate of women-owned businesses that we underwrite. Fifty-eight percent of our loans go to women-owned businesses versus 20% for the industry average. For that Cash App Borrow product I was talking about, 70% of those actives, the 9 million actives that we underwrote, fell below 580 as a FICO score. That's considered a poor FICO score, and yet 97% of repayments are made on time. And this is because we have unique access to data and these technology and tools which can help us uniquely underwrite this often forgotten customer base. Yeah. I mean, credit—sometimes it's been blamed for financial excesses. But access to credit is also, as you say, an advantage that's not available to everyone. Do you have a philosophy between those poles—between risk and opportunity? Or is what you're saying is that the tech you have allows you to avoid that risk? That's right. Let's start with how do the current systems work? It works using inferior data, frankly. It's more limited data. It's outdated. Sometimes it's inaccurate. And it ignores things like someone's cash flows, the stability of your income, your savings rate, how money moves through your accounts, or how you use alternative forms of credit—like buy now, pay later, which we have in our ecosystem through Afterpay. We have a lot of these signals for our 57 million monthly actives on the Cash App side and for the 4 million small businesses on the Square side, and those, frankly, billions of transaction data points that we have on any given day paired with new technologies. And we intend to continue to be on the forefront of AI, machine learning, and data science to be able to empower more people into the economy. The combination of the superior data and the technologies is what we believe ultimately helps expand access. You have a financial background, but not in the financial services industry. Before Block, you were a video game developer at Activision. Are financial businesses and video games similar? Are there things that are similar about them? There are. There actually are some things that are similar, I will say. There are many things that are unique to each industry. Each industry is incredibly complex. You find that when big technology companies try to do gaming. They've taken over the world in many different ways, but they can't always crack the nut on putting out a great game. Similarly, some of the largest technology companies have dabbled in fintech but haven't been able to go as deep, so they're both very nuanced and complex industries. I would say another similarity is that design really matters. Industrial design, the design of products, the interface of products, is absolutely mission-critical to a great game, and it's absolutely mission-critical to the simplicity and accessibility of our products, be it on Square or Cash App. And then maybe the third thing that I would say is that when I was in gaming, at least the business models were rapidly changing from an intermediary distribution mechanism, like releasing a game once and then selling it through a retailer, to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. And similarly with banking, people don't want to bank from 9 to 5, six days a week. They want 24/7 access to their money and the ability to, again, grow their financial livelihood, move their money around seamlessly. So, some similarities are there in that shift to an intermediary model or a slower model to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. Part of your target audience or your target customer base at Block are Gen Z folks. Did you learn things at Activision about Gen Z that has been useful? Are there things that businesses misunderstand about younger generations still? What we've learned is that Gen Z, millennial customers, aren't going to do things the way their parents did. Some of our stats show that 63% of Gen Z customers have moved away from traditional credit cards, and over 80% are skeptical of them. Which means they're not using a credit card to manage expenses; they're using a debit card, but then layering on on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Or again, using tools like buy now, pay later, or Cash App Borrow, the means in which they're managing their consistent cash flows. So that's an example of how things are changing, and you've got to get up to speed with how the next generation of customers expects to manage their money.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cash App profits disappoint
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. Digital payments company Block acknowledged that its signature digital wallet, Cash App, didn't bring in the profits it expected for the first quarter. 'We saw a pronounced shift in customer behavior during the time period that we typically see the largest disbursement,' Block Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said in a May 1 earnings call. She cited the time period as late February into March. 'This coincided with [Cash App] inflows coming in below our expectations during the quarter,' she added. The disappointing numbers came even after the company integrated the buy now, pay later service Afterpay onto Cash App debit cards in the first quarter. The payments firm has singled out Afterpay as a driver of growth. Block saw gross profit for Cash App grow just 10% for the quarter — to $1.38 billion — compared to the same time period in 2024. Cash App's gross profit nearly doubled from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024. Oakland, California-based Block 'saw a more pronounced impact to discretionary spending in areas like travel and media,' Ahuja said during the earnings call. Ahuja also noted that Cash App had about 57 million monthly active users for the quarter, which analysts said was roughly flat compared to previous quarters. 'Users were seemingly flat or flatish for the fourth quarter in a row,' Macquarie Equity Research analyst Paul Golding said. The relatively anemic growth, combined with a stagnant user base, 'could spell difficulty in our view in achieving some of this flywheel momentum that Cash App was positioned for,' Golding said. The softness in Cash App earnings are a possible warning sign for Block, William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey said. 'The company needs a greater sense of product innovation urgency,' he said in an interview. Part of the problem was that Block focused on engaging with current users rather than adding new ones, TD Cowen analyst Bryan Bergin said. 'If you go back to a year ago, there was not really a focus on growing the network,' he said. Instead, Block wanted Cash App users to utilize other products such as direct deposit, Bergin said.'Now they've realized it can't be one or the other,' he said. 'They need to be driving network [growth] and engagement.' When reached for comment, a Block spokesperson referred to the company's first-quarter shareholder letter, which said that the payments firm is improving Cash App in a number of ways. Those steps include rolling out short-term loans, called Cash App Borrow, to millions more users and increasing the borrowing limit for some eligible customers, but the letter says that's happening now, in the second quarter. 'We expect these enhancements to Cash App Borrow will drive gross profit growth,' the letter said. The spokesperson declined to say what Block had expected Cash App's profit to be in the first quarter. Block's reported net income was more than cut in half, to $189.9 million for the first quarter, a drop from the $472 million for the year-ago quarter, according to the company's quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That happened as the company's total revenue fell 3% to $5.77 billion for the quarter and operating expenses climbed 6% to $1.96 billion. Recommended Reading Afterpay to drive Cash App growth, executive says Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Mayor
04-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Block shares plunge 18% as company takes 'cautious stance,' issues weak guidance for year
Block reported first-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations on Thursday and issued a disappointing outlook. The stock tumbled 15% in extended trading. Here is how the company did, compared to analysts' consensus estimates from LSEG. Earnings per share: 56 cents adjusted. That figure may not be comparable to estimates. 56 cents adjusted. That figure may not be comparable to estimates. Revenue: $5.77 billion vs. $6.2 billion expected Revenue decreased about 3% from $5.96 billion a year earlier. Gross profit rose 9% to $2.29 billion from $2.09 billion a year earlier. That missed analysts' forecasts of $2.32 billion for the quarter. Block provided weaker-than-expected profit guidance for the second quarter and full year, reflecting challenging economic conditions. A growing number of tech companies are warning investors about the rest of the year following President Donald Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs on imported goods last month. 'We recognize we are operating in a more dynamic macro environment, so we have reflected a more cautious stance on the macro outlook into our guidance for the rest of the year,' the company wrote in its quarterly report. The company expects gross profit in the second quarter of $2.45 billion and $9.96 billion for the full year. Analysts were expecting $2.54 billion and $10.2 billion, respectively, according to StreetAccount. In the first quarter, gross payment volume, or a measure of money moving through Square and Cash App, came in light at $56.8 billion, versus expectations of $58 billion, according to StreetAccount. Despite Cash App's broader push into financial services and lending, the segment's gross profit was a bit softer than expected. CFO Amrita Ahuja cited lower inflows and muted tax-season spending, but said the company expect a pickup later this year, in part because of the nationwide expansion of the Cash App Borrow program following approval by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. While Wall Street is selling on the results, Ahuja said Block delivered its most profitable quarter ever, which she said is 'a reflection of the continued discipline across our business and the efficiency with which we operate.' Square faces the same risks as many others in the payments space due to its reliance on consumer spending. But international markets, now nearly 18% of its volume, remain a bright spot, and a recent survey of small and medium-sized businesses showed strong adoption and satisfaction, even as price sensitivity grows and tariff risks linger. Block, an early leader in point-of-sale systems for small businesses, faces growing competition from rivals like Toast and Fiserv 's Clover — though Square still gained share during the quarter in its target verticals including retail, as well as food and beverage. Cash App continues to push deeper into banking. This quarter marked the debut of Afterpay's buy now, pay later integration on the Cash App Card, part of Block's broader effort to expand credit access. With regulatory approval for Borrow, the company can effectively double the number of users eligible for the product, Ahuja said, while also improving unit economics by bringing loan servicing and origination fully in-house. Cash App gross profit was up 10% from a year earlier to $1.38 billion. Competition in peer-to-peer payments is heating up, after Venmo reported a 20% jump in revenue. Block CEO Jack Dorsey said Cash App is focused on offering more products, while at the same time still targeting additional users. 'We, of course, want to deepen engagement with our customers through banking services and Borrow — and I have no doubt we will,' Dorsey said on the earnings call. 'But at the same time, we need to make sure that we continuously grow our network, and that starts with peer-to-peer.' Analysts view lending as a key piece of monetization, alongside growing opportunities in merchant services and advertising. Morgan Stanley noted that about half of surveyed Square merchants now use Block's banking products. Block recorded bitcoin holdings of $2.3 billion at the end of the quarter. The company expects to deliver its first bitcoin mining chips with Proto in the second half of the year. Block shares are down 31% this year as of Thursday's close. — CNBC's Robert Hum contributed to this report. READ SOURCE
