Square Cash app is accelerating growth, outpacing Venmo

Square continues to push Square Cash, its mobile payment app. While Square provides payment, lending, software, and hardware tools, Cash is the connective tissue between merchants and consumers.

Eventually, Square intends to become a bank and is still working with the FDIC to obtain a banking charter. Cash is an important cog in Square’s strategy to create its own commerce ecosystem, so downloads of the app are a good proxy for growth.

Square downloads are accelerating against Venmo, as the download spread between the two payments leaders is widening, according to research from Nomura.

Square Cash is averaging about 2.1 million downloads a month in 2019. That’s up from an average of 1.9 million per month in 2018.

Square Cash download growth accelerated in May, as downloads grew by 2.2 million. May marked the sixth consecutive month that Square Cash downloads exceeded 2018 averages.

Venmo, on the other hand, is seeing download growth slow. It’s averaging 1.7 million downloads per month as its year over year growth in downloads is slowing down.

In May, Venmo experienced what Nomura called a ‘sharp slowdown’ to 35 percent growth, which was a deceleration from 47 percent in March and 54 percent in April.

Cumulatively, with 53.9mn total Cash App downloads vs. 47.9mn for Venmo, the gap between the two apps reached an all-time-high of 5.9M vs. 5.5M in April.