The Cash App launches a wand to tap and pay

Digital wallet app Cash App is launching a new tool on Thursday, and it appears to be inspired by… Social media trend It involves paying for items in the real world with the tap of a homemade magic wand, which disguises a tap-and-pay credit card. Now, there’s a real stick you can buy to participate. The company’s $25 stick is part of a lineup of new NFC-enabled tag devices, which Cash App plans to expand to include more form factors in the coming months.

The company said its tags are linked to the Cash App card and will operate at outlets compatible with Visa’s payment platform. Tags are activated by linking the stick device (pictured above) to the app, and there is no minimum balance required for the tag to work.

The new Cash App stick comes with a keyring that allows you to easily attach it to a bag or clip it to clothing. The tool ostensibly lets you make payments at times when taking your phone out of your bag would be cumbersome, like at concerts or sporting events. Of course, the real motivation is that there’s something quirky about tapping a stick to pay for things, especially on special occasions like Christmas shopping trips, which might appeal to younger users.

Wand users will get instant notifications of spending while checking out, and can lock or unlock the tag from the app at any time. If the user loses a tag, they can use the app to deactivate it. The company said it also monitors fraud in payments made through tags to protect users.

“While digital wallets are invisible and physical cards are often buried in wallets, Cash App tags are just the opposite. We see a unique opportunity here to make payments visible and social for the first time,” Thomas Templeton, hardware lead at Block, said in a statement.

The company said it plans to introduce more types of labels, including limited editions, in the coming months before making some versions permanently available this summer.

Cash App is largely targeting Gen Z users with this launch in a move to attract younger users to the app. The cluster’s proprietary financial technology was introduced Accounts for teen users in 2021and this year it was launched Parent-controlled debit card For children aged six to 12 years.