Chase’s New Mobile Card Reader Takes Aim At Square & 5 More Small Business News Stories You Need To Know

Welcome to another week of Merchant Maverick’s essential news roundup for small business owners.

This week, JPMorgan Chase announced its own mobile payments reader while a survey hinted that office spaces will shrink in the future. Read on through for the week’s top five must-know stories for small business owners.

JPMorgan Chase Announced A Mobile Card Reader

In an effort to broaden its business services, JPMorgan Chase announced the launch of a new card reader that can take payments on the go. Dubbed QuickAccept, this mobile payments platform will allow merchants to ring up credit card payments via a mobile app or a contactless card reader — much like tools offered already by Square and PayPal. Unlike those other services, however, Chase’s new platform will deliver merchants the money made from sales on the same day for free (Square, for comparison, charges ~1.5% for instant transfers).

To work alongside the new payments platform, Chase also announced a business checking account called Business Complete Banking. Nothing is really special about this checking account, although you will need to open one if you want to take advantage of QuickAccept.

Over 75% of CEOs Expect Office Space To Shrink In The Future

In a survey of 171 CEOs across America, Fortune magazine and Deloitte found that 76% of those polled expect their company will need less office space in the future. Growing acceptance of smaller office space could be because many are finding remote work isn’t so bad after all — 40% of CEOs in the survey said employee productivity has gone up due to remote work.

Interestingly, Fortune/Deloitte’s survey comes on the heels of a different study about returning to work by workplace technology startup Envoy. That survey found that 73% of US-based employees worry about their health and safety at work. So even if some companies are ready to fully return to the office, most employees may be less keen to follow suit.

Facebook Revealed Plans To Beef Up WhatsApp Business

In an effort to squeeze money out of its WhatsApp messaging platform, Facebook is set to make several additions to the business side of the service. To start, businesses will be able to sell products to customers within chats. Facebook didn’t say how exactly the in-chat shopping feature might be implemented, but it is supposed to work alongside businesses’ “existing commerce and customer solutions.”

Facebook is also launching a hosting service in “the coming months” that will include the ability for businesses to manage their WhatsApp messages. Finally, Facebook noted that some WhatsApp services for business customers will cost money, although specifics haven’t been revealed yet.

Further reading: Has Facebook Finally Broken WhatsApp—Radical New Update Now Confirmed, Forbes

Outlook For Restaurant Isn’t As Bleak As Previously Thought

Despite the damage the pandemic has done to restaurants, there is hope yet. Moody’s moved its outlook rating for the restaurant industry from “negative” to “stable” last week. The investor service predicted that there will be “slowly improving business conditions” during the next 12 to 18 months and that the industry’s operating profit will grow by around 15% in 2021.

However, restaurants aren’t out of the woods yet. A recent Bloomberg report discussed restaurants that have opened up outdoor dining during the pandemic must innovate once again to survive the cold winter months. For many, winterizing an outdoor space may be too expensive — outdoor headers often cost between $1,000 and $1,500 a pop.

Further reading: Off-Premise Sales and Non-Traditional Payment Options are Top of Mind for Restaurant Franchisees in COVID-19 Landscape, TD Bank

Entrepreneurship Is On The Rise

Alongside a rise in joblessness has come a rise in entrepreneurship. According to data by the U.S. Census Bureau, new businesses filed 1.5 million Employer Identification Number applications in the third quarter of this year — an 82% jump year-over-year. The Midwest and the South both saw steep rises in particular.

MBA applications are also soaring as people look to boost their professional skill set. A survey of the top 25 US business schools by Poets & Quants found that the number of applications is up an average of 22.6%. USC’s Marshall School of Business leads the pack with a 66.4% increase in applications.

Further reading: Entrepreneurship Is the Vaccine for Urban Economies, Bloomberg

The Latest From Merchant Maverick

The Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans struggled to adequately help many small businesses during the early stages of the pandemic. Learn what exactly went wrong from our readers’ perspectives:

• Top 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Were Denied Government Funding During The COVID Crisis

Something Good…

A Texas farm has been in the news recently for helping special-needs children play and hang out with animals that require special needs, too.

Run as a non-profit organization called Safe in Austin, the farm is home to over 150 animals who are injured or need some type of additional support. Among the residents include a rescued turkey born with a claw abnormality and a calf with a birth defect that fused its legs and spine together.

“There is something absolutely magical about watching a child with differences come out here and say, ‘They’re just like me,’ ” said Safe in Austin founder Jamie Wallace-Griner. She added: “We have animals that are blind or deaf, have diabetes, cerebral palsy, deformities, missing limbs, broken spines … they all become part of our family.”