Latest news with #OwenJennings
Fast Company
29-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Cash App wants you to throw your money in the pool (literally)
BY Listen to this Article More info 0:00 / 2:13 Cash App wants you to take a dip into its newest feature: Pools. The company announced the launch of a new 'pools' feature Tuesday, which allows users to—you guessed it—pool their money and make group payments. For instance, it can be used to pay for a dinner with friends, a vacation, or even to collect money for a birthday or wedding gift. Owen Jennings, Business Lead at Block, Cash App's parent company, says that implementing pools was something of a no-brainer, since they were able to simply look at how their users were utilizing the app, and create a new feature to facilitate the behavior the Cash App team was seeing. 'It's really, really common behavior, we see more than half of our customers engaging in pooling behavior,' he says of Cash App users sending money to each other to pay for a single, larger expense. 'To some extent, we've just built something that's custom for this specific use-case.' Jennings adds that what he's particularly excited about, in terms of pools, is that 'for the first time, we're allowing out-of-network contributions,' which means some users don't even need to have Cash App in order to participate. In those cases, their friends can send them a link to a Cash App pool, and the out-of-network participants can use Apple Pay or Google Pay to contribute. While pools is an active feature for a subset of Cash App users currently, there is a wider rollout planned for the coming months. Jennings also mentions that launching new features and products, such as pools, is the primary way that Cash App, and Block at large, have grown its customer base and deepened engagement with current customers. 'Folks typically come in because of our peer-to-peer features,' he says, 'and increasingly attach to additional features.' In that sense, the company is seeing a payoff. Block—which was founded by CEO Jack Dorsey (perhaps most well-known for founding Twitter) in 2009 and is also the parent company of Square, Afterpay, TIDAL, Proto, and Bitkey—has grown enough to become the latest entrant into the S&P 500. Investors evidently liked that news, too, because the company's stock has popped recently—shares are up nearly 24% over the past month, as of writing. The early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sam Becker is a freelance writer and journalist based near New York City. He is a native of the Pacific Northwest, and a graduate of Washington State University, and his work has appeared in and on Fortune, CNBC, TIME, and more. More
CNBC
29-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Cash App opens up to Apple Pay and Google Pay for the first time
Cash App is going on the offensive in peer-to-peer payments. The Block-owned payments platform on Tuesday unveiled Pools, a new peer-to-peer feature designed to make group payments simple. It's the company's first major P2P product launch in nearly two years. "This is the first time we're going into out-of-network payments with Pools," said Owen Jennings, Block's head of business, referring to the feature's ability to accept contributions via Apple Pay or Google Pay from people who aren't on Cash App. Pools allows users to create and manage a shared balance for group payments — whether splitting a dinner bill or collecting funds for a group trip. Contributions can be made through Cash App or via Apple Pay and Google Pay, which opens up the experience to users outside the app for the first time. By sharing a Pool link, organizers can collect funds even from friends who don't use Cash App, making out-of-network participation easier. The launch comes as Cash App races to regain momentum in a high-stakes rivalry with Venmo, which has been steadily growing under new leadership at PayPal. PayPal reported its second-quarter results before the market opened Tuesday. Venmo had another knockout quarter, with revenue growing more than 20% year over year — its highest growth rate since 2023. That followed a similarly strong first quarter where Venmo's revenue growth doubled the pace of payment volume, driven by rising adoption of debit cards, instant transfers, and online checkout. The gains were fueled by heavier use of Venmo debit cards, instant transfers, and online checkout integrations. PayPal does not break out Venmo revenue. For Block, the debut of Pools is a strategic reset. The company posted disappointing first-quarter results in May, missing revenue expectations and admitting it had lost focus on growing Cash App's user base. "Money is fundamentally social in nature," Jennings said. "We want Cash App to be the financial operating system for the next generation… to essentially be the money app where a customer can run their entire financial life," added Jennings, who was previously Cash App's chief operating officer. That includes reinvesting in the peer-to-peer features that first made the app popular, and now aiming to make them more social and accessible — functionality that's central to Cash App's broader growth strategy. Jennings said opening up access to Apple and Google accounts is an opportunity to get more active users and bring people into the ecosystem. The company sees each non-user who contributes to a pool as a potential convert. "This product is fundamentally geared at network expansion and improving the virality of our peer-to-peer products," he added. "It's the foundation of Cash App — it's how Cash App started, but it's also the growth engine that fuels everything else." Internally, the rollout represents a cultural shift at Block. The feature went from idea to launch in just a few months, driven by what Jennings described as "high velocity, high quality" development powered in part by internal AI tools like the company's open-source assistant, Goose. "The pace of development on this and our ability to get it in customers' hands feels really different this year," Jennings said. "Especially in the past three or four months, relative to how things felt about a year ago." He added that the shift isn't unique to Block. "You'll probably broadly see that in the industry, where the pace of development is going to pick up as the marginal cost of a great line of code continues to fall. And this is just a great example of how we were able to move really fast." The launch also reflects CEO Jack Dorsey's call to return Cash App to its core growth engine. On the company's first-quarter earnings call, Dorsey acknowledged the platform's recent underperformance "I just don't think we were focused enough and had enough attention on the network and the network density, and that is our foundation," he said. While Cash App continues to expand its banking and lending products — including its FDIC-approved Borrow program — Dorsey emphasized that the app's success still hinges on peer-to-peer engagement. "We of course want to deepen engagement with our customers through banking services and Borrow," he said. "But at the same time, we need to make sure that we continuously grow our network, and that starts with peer-to-peer." Pools is designed to drive organic user growth — not direct revenue. "We're not looking at this from a profit maximization perspective," Jennings said. "This is very geared at network expansion and getting back to a place where actives are growing at a healthy clip." The tool comes with built-in progress tracking, seamless integration with Cash App's banking tools, and the ability for organizers to set a target amount and share a link to collect contributions. Pools is currently available to a limited set of Cash App users, with a broader rollout expected in the coming months. For Block, it's the start of what Jennings described as a new chapter — one focused on making money feel "more multiplayer."
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Latest S&P 500 entrant surprises 4M merchants, stock jumps
Latest S&P 500 entrant surprises 4M merchants, stock jumps originally appeared on TheStreet. Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ), the tech and financial services company, recently made a few announcements that have sent the company's stock soaring. First, the company is set to join the S&P 500, the stock market index tracking the performance of 500 of the largest public companies in the U.S., on July 23. Next, Block's business head, Owen Jennings, announced on July 22 that the company's Square payments system is onboarding merchants to its new Bitcoin acceptance feature. The Square point-of-sale terminal system serves over 4 million U.S. merchants who can potentially pivot toward Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network. Square integrating Bitcoin payments for its large user base comes at an opportune time, as the world's largest cryptocurrency hit an all-time high (ATH) of $123,091.61 only last by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2009, Block, Inc., earlier known as Square, Inc., has a suite of products that are geared toward Bitcoin. Besides Square, it offers the Cash App digital wallet that supports Bitcoin investments and the self-custody Bitkey wallet for Bitcoin. Block, Inc. holds more than $1 billion in 8,584 BTC on its corporate balance sheet. Dorsey himself is a well-known Bitcoin advocate who believes its price will go up to $1 million at least by 2030. Block, Inc., which went public in 2015, saw its stock soar 9% to as high as $79.44 on July 21 following the July 18 announcement of its inclusion in the S&P 500. Square's recent announcement of Bitcoin integration led to the stock continuing its rally. The XYZ stock was exchanging hands at $80.32 in pre-market hours on July 23. Latest S&P 500 entrant surprises 4M merchants, stock jumps first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 23, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 23, 2025, where it first appeared. 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
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
