The Australian’s Australian of the Year: Afterpay high flyers turn on the afterburners

The ‘buy now, pay later’ sensation Afterpay has been one of our big success stories. Its founders say they are only just getting started though, after a watershed year.

Afterpay founders Nick Molnar, left, and Anthony Eisen have secured the biggest merger deal in Australian corporate history.

In what has become a golden era for the Australian technology sector, Afterpay duo Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen stand out from the crowd for achieving so much in such a short time.

A little over seven years since they started what is now a household name and a pioneer of the burgeoning “buy now, pay later” industry, Molnar and Eisen have pulled off the biggest deal in Australian corporate history – the $39bn merger between Afterpay and US giant Block.

The deal with Block (formerly known as Square) was confirmed on Wednesday morning, and comes as 32-year-old Molnar and Eisen, 50, have been nominated for The Australian’s Australian of the Year award.

Depending on Afterpay’s share price during the next week, the duo could emerge with more than $5bn of combined shares in the New York Stock ­Exchange-listed Block, the fin­ancial services giant started by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey that will also trade on the ASX. All of which is a far cry from when Eisen put out his bins one evening at his Sydney house a decade ago, noticing there was always a light on across the road where someone was working hard into the early hours.

It turned out to be Molnar, who was selling jewellery online via eBay, packing up his orders overnight to take to the post office the next morning.

Molnar and Eisen struck up a friendship, and Molnar shared his idea to help what he now calls “fairness and financial freedom” for younger consumers in particular, the millennial shoppers who have become such a key part of the Afterpay success story.

“Part of the opportunity to launch Afterpay was … striking a consumer chord that came out of the (Global Financial Crisis),” says Eisen.

Molnar’s idea was that younger millennials were shying away from credit cards after the GFC because they feared being weighed down with debt, and that paying for something in instalments in a sort of debit card style transaction was more palatable.

That theory has proven to be a huge success and “to Afterpay it” has entered the vernacular, and spawned dozens of competitors.

Afterpay was born in 2014, refining Molnar’s idea into a business that derives most of its income from retailers who pay a fee and percentage of a sale to Molnar and Eisen’s business.

It has gone from a $165m company at the time of its ASX float in 2017 to one that is worth almost 15 times that today.

But Molnar says even with Afterpay set to be part of the wider Block group, there is a strong sense the company is still only just getting started as he and Eisen stay on in the combined company.

“It (gives us) an ability to play a larger game,” Molnar says.

Readers are encouraged to submit a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the form, or emailing to [e-mail]. Nominations close on Friday, January 21.