Cash App

Pros

• An easy way to request and transfer money
• Responsive and streamlined user interface
• Marketplace for stocks and bitcoin

Cons

• Instant transfers charge a fee
• Sometimes has issues finding users by name

Square Cash is a mobile banking app that lets you transfer money to your bank, make payments to other users or businesses, and invest in stocks or bitcoin. It's widely recognized as one of the safest ways to digitally handle your finances, and it's as fully featured as you could want from an app like this without becoming bloated. The clean green and white interface of Cash App makes good use of clean lettering and universal icons to provide everyone with a streamlined understanding of what each of the app's five main tabs do. Rarely do you have to click more than a couple times to get where you want to go, and the relatively broad range of options you have never seem overwhelming.

The first thing you'll always see when opening up the app is a screen that shows your current Cash App balance and includes the option to request money or make a payment. All you have to do is enter your total, hit the appropriate button, and then decide who you're sending the request or cash to. An activity feed and a list of suggested friends adds something more resembling a social media app, but it's largely unobtrusive if you have little interest in that. Of course, your money has to come from somewhere — and the most convenient way to do so is simply to link a debit card. The process isn't that much more difficult than making or requesting a payment, but Cash App even has options if you don't have a bank account, debit card, or credit card.

That's where the banking option comes in, and it might deserve a bit more skepticism than the option to exchange money from one account to another does. The Cash App itself can serve as a holding pen for your cash, and you can even deposit money into your Cash account using an ATM in addition to setting up direct deposit or recurring deposits from a debit card. Cash App is one of the safer platforms of its kind, but that doesn't mean that it can promise the same financial assurances as a bank. If you do decide to use Cash App in lieu of a traditional bank, you can have a card shipped to you that will function like a debit card for your Cash account.

Connecting with friends and businesses is easy. All users have a username called a cashtag that they can easily share with a link or a QR code — but as long as they're connected to the app with their email or their phone, Cash App will usually automatically identify people on your contacts list. That ease of simplicity extends to the Bitcoin and stock marketplaces as well. If you consider yourself a serious investor, this app isn't going to have the detail or responsiveness you really need — but its clean and understandable approach to explaining the information makes it work exploring if you're just beginning the path to investment.

Pros

• An easy way to request and transfer money
• Responsive and streamlined user interface
• Marketplace for stocks and bitcoin

Cons

• Instant transfers charge a fee
• Sometimes has issues finding users by name