Square goes down, bringing SMBs with it

By Isabelle Castro Margaroli

Everyone makes mistakes, even multi-billion dollar public companies. But not everyone makes mistakes that could impact the livelihood of millions.?

Square has become a household name for Point of Sale, taking up 28.7% of the POS system market, and it has become a leader in the field. That success has huge consequences when things don’t go to plan.?

Square’s outages last week, spanning through Thursday and Friday morning, impacted companies across the world. Business owners have voiced their frustration and said the mistake had cost them money and business, as Square tried time and again to get back online.?

Now officially being called a Domain Name System (DNS)issue apparently caused by a combination of standard updates, claims of a cyber attack have been put firmly to bed. However, the knock-on effect on Square’s clients is yet to be resolved.? Square’s POS system acts as many businesses' only way to receive digital payments.

Larger companies may have alternative POS systems in place, mitigating some of the harm, but small businesses, also the most vulnerable to issues in lost revenue affecting their overall outlook, were left by the outages without payment options.?

In a world increasingly moving away from cash payments, the impact on last week’s business must have been significant, even worse, given the challenging economic conditions SMBs have been facing this year.?

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For its 2023 State of Compliance Benchmark Report, Alloy surveyed more than 200 professionals working in compliance-related roles at fintechs to learn more about their organizations' compliance strategies.

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