I've find myself at dinner on more than one occasion, semi-embarrassed, without cash, out of all places at a cash-only restaurant requiring a temporary loan. I don't know about you but I simply don't carry that much cash on my person these days. Repaying that short-term loan can be awkward when it comes to writing a check and / or finding a far away ATM which always leads to dark alleys plus the extra charges so I try to avoid that as much as possible. I don't know too many friends that have used Wells Fargo or Chase's application to send and receive cash because not too people actually bank at the same place and when it comes to credit unions, forget about it.

For all those awkward moments, we now have Square Cash. It's a free service (no hidden charges) that allow individuals to send and receive cash via e-mail. Yup, seriously. Money is transferred via one debit card to another up to increments of $250 on a weekly basis but with a simple verification of identity, you can send up to $2500 a week! No password or account setup is required and the app is available on either iOS or Android. Deposits happen fast within one to two days but Square is promising faster service in the near future.

The only caveat is that you have to trust Square to handle your transaction. So if anything, make sure your e-mail account password is a tad bit more secure when using the service but either than that, Square has had an awesome track record with their merchant business in detecting fraud through strong security measures and close human and machine monitoring. Start e-mailing cash today!

Square Cash is the quickest, simplest method I’ve seen for sending money from one person to another.

via Walt Mossberg for Wall Street Journal