Invisible Payments Officially Have a Countertrend—and It's a Magic Wand

For years, making payments feel magical meant making them almost disappear. A tap of a phone replaced pulling out a card to pay. Block has now taken that ambition in a different direction. A literal one.

In June, Cash App rolled out pay by a physical wand to catch the fancy of a younger audience (and likely myself; I already have one non-payment wand in my closet). For $25, Cash App customers can receive a wand that connects to their Cash App card. That wand can pay for stuff at checkouts that are connected to Visa’s tap-to-pay, making the experience more theatrical and fun. It also comes with a keychain, so the wand can bedazzle a purse or a belt, representing an accessorizing trend that has especially caught on with Gen Z. According to a Cash App survey of Gen Z consumers, 38 percent of Gen Z consumers purchase collectibles, accessories or limited edition items at least monthly. They are also the generation that reaches for debit over credit. According to a U.S. News survey, more than 20 percent of Gen Z never use a credit card at all.

The new way to pay builds off a growing love of whimsy in retail and social media. For months, there has been a TikTok trend where women have been DIY-ing wands to pay for things and filming it for social media. Example A. Even Amazon lets people buy contactless payments wand holders "to turn every checkout into a fun adventure.”

The wand accessory is the first drop of Cash App tags, Block’s NFC-powered physical payment accessories but not its last. “From clothing to jewelry, almost any item can become a way to pay with this technology,” said Thomas Tempelton, hardware lead at Block,  in a statement. “We’re looking forward to hearing what our customers want to see next.”

As payment companies have spent years trying to make the experience feel invisible, Block is now flaunting it with Cash App Tags to seize on an opportunity to “make payments visible and social for the first time,” Tempelton said.

Design of physical cards has mattered even when cardholders use their phones to pay.

Consider those metal cards. They are status symbols for their perks but also for their look and feel and for the sound they make when you drop them. They are also expensive to make and the people who care about metal cards likely are different from those who want a wand at checkout.

A while ago, Matthew Goldman, a payments expert and founder of fintech consultancy firm Totavi, and I were talking about the importance of design. He told me about the work that went into designing a Walmart prepaid reloadable prepaid card, whose customers were primarily lower income or credit-limited users at the time.  While one suggestion was to include a large smiley face on the card, the team went with something more elegant so it could pass what Goldman calls “the date test,” where customers aren’t ashamed to use the card on a date.

As Goldman told me, “the card says something about you.”

In his newsletter, he described it this way: “Credit card design is a mix of branding, user experience, and manufacturing constraints. While metal cards dominate the conversation, there are plenty of other ways to create a distinctive, high-quality card. Whether through materials, colors, chip customizations, or packaging, the physical card remains a powerful brand touchpoint, even in an increasingly digital payments world.”

The wand is just the latest proof of that. As Goldman put it: the card says something about you. Apparently, so does the wand.