After launching its contactless reader, Square continues to roll out its new products in Australia, Build with Square being its latest offering. Build with Square suite of payment APIs (Application Programming Interface) is developed locally to enhance its omnichannel offering.
Square API lets developers build an ecosystem for businesses to seamlessly accept payments online, in store, or on the go. With our Square payments APIs (e-commerce API and point-of-sale API) can create customizable solutions that work for any size business.
The Square API for e-commerce allows sellers to use Square to process online payments on their websites with a few lines of code, with the Square Dashboard then showing sales processed both in store and online.
Integration of Square’s APIs is free, with online payments accepted using the e-commerce API are charged at a flat rate of 2.2 percent per Visa, Mastercard, or American Express transaction. Card payments accepted via the point of sale API are charged at 1.9 percent per transaction.
Ben Pfisterer, Australian country manager for Square, said the launch of the payment APIs “vastly increases the capability of the Square platform and enables deeper partnerships with third party solutions.” He adds,
It’s more common than ever for businesses of any size to sell their products or services online and in-person, so having a fully integrated omni-channel system gives them a powerful advantage.
Build with Square was first launched in the US early last year, around the same time Square launched its original card reader in Australia.
With Australia the first country outside of North America to be given access to Square’s payment APIs, Square’s developer lead Carl Perry said that the Australian launch is an important step as the company looks to create a “more international” platform for developers in 2017. Pfisterer explained,
We’re very aware of where we’re at with our business, and in Australia we’re relatively new. We saw the Square reader as the first capability we needed, and around that time the US was starting to deploy e-commerce processing as well, so we did look at the range of products available, but the second most in demand was contactless, so we put our attentions to putting that in market.
He went on to conclude,
We know we’re being used by a different segment in the market, so we’re not just out there to offer e-commerce processing functionality, we’re offering a holistic end-to-end solution that applies to different businesses.
