Back in August, Square partnered with Starbucks to bring mobile payments to the coffee giant’s thousands of stores nationwide. Starbucks said that Square would be integrated into 7,000 of its stores across the U.S. by early November, and now the time has come.
Square has the ability to open a virtual tab with a merchant so you don’t have to scan your iPhone at the register, but Starbucks isn’t adopting this functionality. You’ll have to scan your iPhone after you order, like Passbook.
“We look forward to continuing to create amazing connections with our customers – both in our stores and outside of our stores and offering our customers choices in how they want to pay. Starbucks was the first national retailer to offer its own mobile payment technology combined with a world-class loyalty program in January 2011, and we have seen a tremendous response from our customers with more than 100 million mobile transactions occurring in our U.S. stores since its launch,” said Adam Brotman, Starbucks chief digital officer. “Starbucks believes in the values and vision of Square, and just three months after announcing our partnership with Square, we are thrilled to make the convenience of paying with the Square Wallet app available to our customers starting today.”
Customers will be able to tip baristas with Square in the summer of 2013.
Starbucks has offered its own iOS app for mobile payments and loyalty rewards, but now customers can scan a QR code that’s tied to their bank account in Square’s iPhone app. Apple’s Passbook app in iOS 6 operates the same way, but you have to manually reload money onto your Starbucks account. Square is true, bank-to-merchant mobile payments done right.
Via: Forbes
