Square Suffers Mobile Payments Setback in Illinois

Illinois regulators are giving the folks at Square quite a headache these days.

A state regulatory body has notified the mobile payments giant of a cease-and-desist order born of allegations that Square is dealing with payments in Illinois without proper licensing.

Late last week, Square confirmed the existence of an issue and said the following about the matter:

“We’ve been in close contact with the Illinois Division of Financial Institutions for several months and are addressing their concerns.”

In the last five days, however, not much else has been learned about the situation. As far as we can tell, Square still isn’t permitted to do business in Illinois.

Although Illinois state law dictates that “no person in this state in the business of selling or issuing payments instruments” without appropriate licensing, supporters of Square say this doesn’t apply to the company because it doesn’t hold funds like a financial institution would.