Square has acquired the Buy Now Pay Later company Afterpay for 29 billion dollars in an all-stock deal. But the deal is probably not about bringing Buy Now Pay Later into Squareâs services. Itâs probably more important bringing AfterPayâs merchant relationships into Squareâs seller ecosystem and converting AfterPayâs existing customer base into Cash App users.Â
Link
BNPL-companies have never been a real threat to banks, but last week Apple announced that they are joining forces with Goldman Sachs to offer aÂ
Buy Now Pay Later function within Apple Pay to iPhone users. This might not seem like big news, but this is potentially a larger threat to banks because of what it will do to the conscious thoughts of every single person who uses its BNPL: Apple is abstracting away banks. For the first time, you will credit a technology device and the company that made it for helping you move your money.Â
What Apple have done is plant a seed â a seed of a question that will be watered millions of times a day by millions of people every time they pay with Appleâs BNPL product: âWhy do I even need a bank at all?â
Vipps has seen Apple as the main threat for a long time. There is no secret thatÂ
new payment solutions for online shopping will be an important topic around the table in Vipps management team this autumn. I wouldnât be surprised if we see a Buy Now Pay Later solution from Vipps in the years to come since it is a feature that doesnât directly compete with their owners.
Visa, on their side, also doesnât want to miss out and has announced that they are developing installment solutions for their customers.Â
Link