Klarna and Afterpay just got more competition in the US as Australian buy now, pay later provider Openpay has just kicked off its operations in the country.
However, Open will be targeting as slightly different market segment. While the big guys in the industry have cut out slices for themselves within the retail space, Openpay is focusing on segments such as the automotive, healthcare, home improvement and education space.
The FinTech, which went public on the ASX last year, is already live in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
“This is possibly the most significant announcement for Openpay since we listed on the ASX on this day, last year,” said Michael Eidel, CEO and managing director of Openpay. “We are very excited to have commenced the launch of our consumer BNPL and B2B offerings into the US, building on our proven responsible approach, flexible products and focus on industries where we have strong confidence in our ability to deliver a differentiated value proposition. We’re entering the market with a team of highly respected US industry leaders who see great potential to bring our unique approach in BNPL and B2B to the US market.”
Competition in the BNPL market has increased tremendously of late, which has been particularly noticeable in Klarna and Afterpay’s recent spat in the public eye where both companies’ CEOs accused the others of not providing the best service possible to merchants.
Other signs that the market is heating up include, payments giant PayPal, small business lender iwoca and Danish neobank Lunar all having recently launched instalment products of their own.
Moreover, BNPL startups like Zilch, Split and Tabby have also topped up their war chests in recent months.
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