Starbucks Provides New Details on Square Mobile-Pay Rollout

Starbucks plans to accept purchases from the Square mobile wallet beginning next month, and it also plans to list all 7,000 of its company-owned stores in the Square directory, the Seattle-based coffee seller said Oct. 4.

Starbucks announced a $25 million investment in Square in August. Though Starbucks did not agree to use Square's mobile card reader to accept payments, Starbucks said at the time that it planned to use Square's software in combination with the existing Starbucks mobile payment system. Square also agreed to process Starbucks' U.S. credit and debit card transactions.

Starbucks said it will support Square payments in "early November." By the summer of 2013, Starbucks plans to allow consumers to provide tips through the Square and Starbucks mobile payment apps. Starbucks says it has handled more than 70 million mobile payments since it launched its app in January 2011.

"This partnership gives millions of Starbucks customers a quick, seamless payment experience and introduces them to hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the Square directory," said Jack Dorsey, Square's CEO, in a press release.

Starbucks also detailed its support for Passbook, Apple's system for storing digital tickets, loyalty cards and other items. Within the Starbucks app, consumers tap an icon that says "add to Passbook" to combine their Starbucks card account with Apple's system.

Since Passbook is sensitive to the user's location, it can display the Starbucks Card's bar code on the phone's lock screen whenever a consumer enters a Starbucks location, Starbucks says.