Is cash app a debit or credit card

Want to pay for your morning coffee without digging in your wallet for spare change? Want to cover your half of dinner with a friend without giving your waiter your credit card? Maybe you need to send your half of your monthly rent payment to your roommate and you're out of paper checks.

You have plenty of options today to pay for these purchases – and many others – without using cash or your credit cards. Instead, you can turn to digital and mobile wallets, apps that you install on your smartphone. You can use these apps to make payments from your phone, all without using either your cards or cash.

PayPal, Venmo and Google Pay are some of the more popular mobile wallets available today. But those aren't the only apps from which you can choose. You can also download the Cash App by Square, another competitor in the mobile wallet space.

What sets Cash App apart from its competitors? And how can you use this app? Read on to find out.

How Does Cash App Work?

With the Cash App, you can send money to anyone and receive funds from anyone. You can also use the app to donate to your favorite charities, tip your waiter, split your utility bill with your roommate or cover just about anything else for which you’d use cash or credit cards.

To get started, download the Cash App from the App Store or Google Play. Once it's installed on your phone, you can use Cash App to send and receive money. You can do this by linking the app to your bank account. But you're not limited to that option: You can also send and receive money directly through the app by using a specially branded Cash App debit card, which you also connect to the app. This means that you can use Cash App without also having a bank account.

Unlike with a traditional bank account, you won't receive an account number when you install the Cash App. Instead, you'll be identified on the Cash App network by your email address or phone number. If you'd rather not use those identifiers, you can also create what Cash App calls a $Cashtag. This is an identifier unique to you. Your $Cashtag must include at least one letter and can't be longer than 20 characters.

Once you create your $Cashtag, the Cash App automatically creates a shareable URL (in this format: https://cash.app/$yourcashtag) that your friends, family members and customers can use to send payments to you.

When someone sends money to your Cash App profile, those dollars will immediately land in your Cash App account. If you've linked a different bank account to the app, the money will instead go to that account.

If you are using your Cash App debit card, you can withdraw money directly from your Cash App account through an ATM. You can also use the card at grocery stores, restaurants or other retailers just like you'd use a traditional debit card. The money, though, comes from the cash in your Cash App account.

You can also receive direct deposits, such as your paycheck, directly to your Cash App if you choose.

How Does The Cash App Cash Card work?

When you sign up for the Cash App and create an account, you'll also receive the Cash Card. This is a Visa-branded debit card that you can use to pay for products and services using the money in your Cash App account.

The Cash Card has a wide reach and is accepted wherever Visa is. This means you can also use your Cash Card to withdraw money from ATMs. Just make sure you have enough money in your Cash App account to cover the funds you are trying to withdraw.

You can use the Cash Card both in physical stores and online. Again, though, you'll need to have enough money in your account to cover any purchases you make.

How Do Bitcoin And Stocks Work On The Cash App?

One of the selling points of the Cash App is that you can use it to purchase bitcoin and invest in stocks.

Bitcoin

To buy bitcoin – a type of virtual currency, or cryptocurrency, that you can use to make purchases on the Web – launch the Cash App and press the "Investing" tab from the app's home screen.

Next, select the "Bitcoin" tab and then press "Buy." Here, you can enter the dollar amount you want to spend on bitcoin and complete your transaction. It usually takes just a few seconds to buy bitcoin through the Cash App. You can buy as much as $10,000 worth of bitcoin in any 7-day period. Cash App even allows you to schedule these purchases. You can set up automatic daily, weekly or bi-weekly bitcoin buys.

Be careful, though: Buying or selling bitcoin through Cash App isn't free. Cash App charges two kinds of fees for bitcoin transactions. There's the service fee of up to 1.76% of each transaction you close and, depending on market activity, an additional fee that Cash App says is determined by price volatility across U.S. exchanges. If you buy $100 worth of bitcoin, then you can be charged a service fee of up to $1.76.

Stocks

Cash App also offers a tool called Cash App Investing, just one of many investing apps that allow you to invest in stocks through the app. Through this service, you can begin investing with as little as $1. You can also sell the stocks you've invested in through Cash App Investing.

A nice feature of this service is that you can buy fractional shares of your favorite stocks. This means that you can purchase less than one full share of stock. The reason you'd do this? Some stocks are expensive, and might be unaffordable to a new investor. Fractional shares of those same stocks are cheaper and could let you invest in a big-name stock without draining your savings account.

There are no fees, either, to buy or sell stocks through the app.

Is Cash App Free To Use?

It’s free to download and install the Cash App. Most of its services – such as sending money, receiving money, investing in stock and accepting deposits – are free, too.

There are some fees that come with the app, though. Whether you pay them depends on how you use the Cash App.

Credit card fees

You can link a credit card to your Cash App account, but that's not the most cost-effective way to use the app. Cash App will charge you a 3% fee every time you use your credit card to send money. If you send someone $200 with the Cash App through your linked credit card, then you'll pay $206. The app doesn't charge you any money to make payments with your debit card or bank account.

Instant transfer fees

You'll pay a 1.5% fee if you request an instant transfer of money from your Cash App account to the debit card linked to that account. If you want to transfer money to your checking account, you won't pay anything. It will take one to three business days, though, for this transfer to close.

Bitcoin fees

Cash App charges two different fees for bitcoin transactions, though you might not get charged for both fees on every transaction. You will always pay a service fee of up to 1.76% of each bitcoin transaction you close. Cash App might also charge what it calls a volatility fee depending on market activity. That fee will vary and, as the name suggests, is based on volatility in the bitcoin market.

The Bottom Line

If you are interested in mobile wallets, this app is a good one to download. It offers plenty of services – such as the ability to send payments, receive funds, invest in stocks and purchase bitcoin – and charges relatively few fees. The Cash Card that it provides is also a nice perk, letting you withdraw funds from ATMs and make purchases both online and at brick-and-mortar shops.

Like all mobile wallets, though, it’s important to not overspend with the Cash App. Any mobile wallet is only as good as your financial habits. Explore other topics on our site to learn more about managing your personal finances.

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