In 1878 Margaret Wolfe Hungerford wrote “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, and in 2021 Ahmed Fahour – formerly of Australia Post and presently of Latitude Financial – agreed. That’s because earlier this month he paid $200 million for a tiny start-up called Symple, deterred neither by its dubious spelling nor its mere $5 million in revenue.

The Latitude name may be unfamiliar, but many will know it as the former GE Capital consumer finance business. Six years ago, that unit was acquired by private equity and renamed Latitude Financial Services. It is a sizable business with 2.5 million customers, mostly via partners, across a range of consumer debt products such as personal loans and credit cards.