Square, the San Francisco-based financial technology company that provides credit card reader applications for iPhone, Android and iPad devices, is now operating its state-chartered industrial bank in Utah.
On Sept. 17, 2017, Square Inc. submitted an application to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions to establish Square Financial Services Inc. as a Utah-chartered, FDIC-insured industrial bank. From there, it was amended in December 2018 and was finally approved on March 17, 2020. Now, after more than a year, Square has satisfied all its opening requirements and has begun operations.
Square said in a release that it is offering banking services like deposits and other products and will primarily service a nationwide market of small businesses, including those that already operate on the Square payment processing platform.
Square Financial Services is the 16th Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-insured industrial bank operating in Utah. It is the second to open in Utah since 2008. The release from Square said that Utah industrial banks had a total of $171 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, 2020.
In March, FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams said Square had “satisfied each of the statutory factors required for approval, subject to certain conditions,” adding that one such condition was for a bank to keep up levels of capital “significantly higher than typical FDIC-insured banks,” banking industry website PYMNTS reported.
Square Financial Services CEO Lewis Goodwin and Brandon Soto, the firm’s chief financial officer, are the leaders of the new bank.