Square brings payment and capital offerings to TouchBistro and Vend customers
Square is turning point-of-sale companies that at one time could've been considered enemies into allies, with two new partnerships with Vend and TouchBistro. Square will now offer Vend and TouchBistro's restaurant …
Context & Ripple Effects
Square has spent the past two years repositioning from a card reader into a small-business platform: it shifted focus to small businesses with instant deposits and dispute protection in 2015, then opened up so sellers can build customized apps on top of its payment service. The Vend and TouchBistro deals extend that logic — instead of fighting vertical point-of-sale vendors for the same merchants, Square plugs its payments and capital into their installed bases.
The timing matters because rivals are raising to do the opposite: Lightspeed's $61M round is funding a retail-and-restaurant system where payments are part of the stack. Square is choosing partnership over build-for-now, while keeping the option to go direct.
First-order effects
- Vend and TouchBistro customers gain access to Square's payment processing and capital offerings without switching point-of-sale systems, and Square acquires distribution into restaurants and retail it doesn't serve directly.
Second-order effects
- Vertical POS vendors like Lightspeed now face a fork: integrate Square as an embedded payments layer or fund their own payments and lending stacks, since merchants increasingly expect financing alongside the register.
Third-order effects
- If partners keep choosing Square's rails, the payments layer commoditizes the software layer — but the pattern cuts both ways, as Square's later move to launch its own restaurant operations platform shows partners can become competitors once Square learns the vertical.
The trend: Payments companies are embedding credit and processing inside third-party vertical software, converting former point-of-sale competitors into distribution channels.