Square to Acquire Buy Now, Pay Later Pioneer Afterpay for $29-billion

Square Inc, the payments firm of Twitter Inc co-founder Jack Dorsey, will buy Australian fintech company Afterpay Ltd for $29 billion, creating a global transactions giant in the biggest buyout of an Australian firm. Square’s decision to purchase the buy now, pay later (BNPL) pioneer is that it looks to expand further into the booming installment loan market. The payments company announced the $29 billion, all-stock deal on Sunday evening. The price tag marks a roughly 30% premium to Afterpay’s last closing price.

Square’s CEO Dorsey in a statement: “Square and Afterpay have a shared purpose. We built our business to make the financial system more fair, accessible, and inclusive, and Afterpay has built a trusted brand aligned with those principles.”

Square pointed to consumers eschewing traditional credit, especially younger buyers. The San Francisco-based payments company already offers installment loans, which said it has been a “powerful growth tool” for Square’s core seller business. It plans to integrate Afterpay into both its seller and Cash App ecosystems. Afterpay lets customers pay in four interest-free installments and pay a fee if they miss an automated payment. Its 16 million customers will eventually be able to manage installment payments directly through Cash App. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

So-called installment loans have been around for decades and were historically used for big-ticket purchases such as furniture. Online payment players and fintechs have been competing to launch their own version of “pay later” products for online items in the low hundreds of dollars. Affirm is one of the better-known public companies offering the option to finance items in smaller, monthly payments. PayPal, Klarna, Mastercard and Fiserv, American Express, Citi, and J.P. Morgan Chase are all offering similar loan products. Apple is planning to launch installment lending in a partnership with Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg reported last month.

Square also announced its second-quarter results on Sunday, ahead of the previously planned release on Wednesday. Gross profit increased 91% from a year ago, which marked a record quarterly growth rate for the payments company. Cash App profit was up 94%, while seller jumped 85% from a year ago. Net revenue excluding bitcoin came in at $1.96 billion for the quarter, an 87% rise year over year. The company’s Venmo competitor, Cash App now has 40 million monthly transacting active customers.