Zip to offer cards, crypto as buy now, pay later group pushes into new services
Buy-now-pay-later group Zip is expanding its offering to include cards and crypto as it pushes into the US market.
Buy-now-pay-later company Zip Co has unveiled plans to allow users to buy and pay with cryptocurrencies, as well as moves to offer physical cards to customers in a bid to reach more merchants.
Zip disclosed the changes at its first retail investor day on Tuesday, just weeks after reporting cash losses of $22.9m for the 2021 financial year.
The ASX-listed buy now pay later player has been rapidly expanding over the past year with operations in five markets across 12 countries. It also recently acquired the remaining stake in US subsidiary Quadpay.
Quadpay has seen its customer numbers swell in recent months, but low numbers of merchants offering buy now pay later at checkout has frustrated customers, according to Zip.
The company announced on Tuesday it planned to bring to market card offerings, initially to its US customers to allow them to transact in stores that did not offer Zip.
Zip recently revealed its app had been downloaded by 5.8m users in the US since its launch. However, only 1 in 10 retailers offers Zip in the US.
Transactions deducted from accounts would be divided into four payments, much as they are on Zip’s app ecosystem.
Zip US chief executive Brad Lindenberg said the feature was planned to be rolled out in time for the holiday season and would give customers access to merchants that did not offer Zip’s payments.
Mr Lindenberg, who co-founded Quadpay, said Zip planned to “enhance our digital wallet” through more services in a push into “digitised financial services”.
“We tailored the need for local market dynamics based on what we hear from our customers,” he said.
“But our vision is to build the combined product suite based on where we are across the world.”
At its investor day presentation, Zip also revealed it planned to bring online functionality to allow customers to trade cryptocurrency.
Zip said the functionality would see potential for US merchants to accept Bitcoin as payment in 2022.
The company plans to roll the product out to its other markets.
“As crypto gains in popularity, we want to be there,” Mr Lindenberg said.
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