Afterpay’s ‘super fans’ spur new app ‘Money’

Buy now, pay later darling Afterpay is going squarely after Gen Z females with its new app, launching Tuesday.

Afterpay executive Lee Hatton: ‘We have started by making this very relevant to millennial and Gen Z female users in particular, but we can absolutely see everybody who is an Afterpay customer benefiting from this app.’ Picture: James Croucher

Afterpay is taking on the banks and credit card providers with its consumer banking app Money by Afterpay, with thousands of the company’s “super fans” lining up to use the app after months of ­extensive testing.

Featuring an Instagram-esque Money Stories feature and lots of emojis, the app is Afterpay’s bid to make finance fun for its young users, and hope they trust the company with salaries and other deposits. It also allows users to turn any transaction into an Afterpay transaction, thanks to a feature dubbed Afterpay Retro.

Thousands of Afterpay super fans were on the buy now, pay later company’s waiting list to download the app, Afterpay’s executive vice-president of new platforms Lee Hatton said.

“There is a huge opportunity here. We have over three million customers in Australia we think this will be the way that they can manage their accounts with Afterpay in a really accelerated way,” Ms Hatton said. “We have started by making this very relevant to millennial and Gen Z female users in particular, but we can absolutely see everybody who is an Afterpay customer benefiting from this app.”

The Money by Afterpay app in action.

The app gives customers daily and weekly bespoke insights into their spending and saving within the Money app, as well as their BNPL balance.

Customers can earn an interest rate of 0.75 per cent on up to 15 different savings accounts, the company said. The app runs on Westpac’s “bank-as-a-service” infrastructure.

US payments giant Square and its chief executive Jack Dorsey are big fans of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and Ms Hatton said “watch this space” when it came to crypto functionality being added to Afterpay’s Money app. Square is entering a $39bn merger with Afterpay in a deal expected to close early next year, and Ms Hatton said the company’s apps would not cannibalise one another.

“When it closes, which will obviously be huge and a fantastic thing for us, we can see the (Square) Cash App being so complementary,” she said.

“We’ve always said this app has global aspirations, and the features and functions of each of the apps will be hugely complementary. We’re really excited about when the time comes to get the teams together and get things accelerating.”

Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar.

Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar said: “Afterpay has become synonymous with buy now, pay later and now we hope Money by Afterpay becomes the go-to for all things money – earnings, spending, savings and BNPL.”

Square shareholders approved the Afterpay tie-up last week, and Square’s Mr Dorsey – also the co-founder and chief executive of ­social media company Twitter – said that the combined company’s access to both sellers and customers would be unparalleled.

“We have these incredible network effects in peer-to-peer, and now we need to look forward to being more of a commerce front end,” Mr Dorsey said on a conference call on Friday.

“We do believe that having both systems is our ultimate superpower and differentiator – having both ends of the counter, two different audiences, of sellers and individuals is really important.

“It is the secret behind Afterpay as well, and probably represents our largest potential.”

The iOS app was available on Tuesday for download, with an Android version expected next year, the company said.