[HN Gopher] Square announces plans to acquire Afterpay
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Square announces plans to acquire Afterpay
Author : sanmak
Score : 21 points
Date : 2021-08-01 22:13 UTC (46 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (squareup.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (squareup.com)
| neximo64 wrote:
| Now square has access to basically a checkout page for a good
| proportion to the online web out there.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Anyone know the difference between Afterpay and Clearpay? Two
| brands for the same thing? Why?
| interesting22 wrote:
| Trademark issues in Europe
| mberning wrote:
| Horrible. People ought to know enough to not use these products
| in the first place, but people will use it anyway. They should be
| required to show the long term effects before being used, much
| like the gore packaging used on cigarettes in some places. What's
| the financial equivalent of lung cancer or having a stoma?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The long-term effects of a zero-interest loan? What are those?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| What do you mean by this?
| pylon wrote:
| As a customer are there any downsides to using these BNPL
| platforms when I'm buying something? I generally never buy
| anything online that I can't afford to pay for it outright so I
| have never used them before.
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| Square is buying a loan shark service.
|
| "The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found one
| in five buy now, pay later users is missing payments, half of
| users aged between 18 to 29 cut back on essential items to make
| repayments, and more than 1.1 million transactions in 2019
| incurred multiple missed payment fees.
|
| It also warned 15 per cent of users, and half under 29, had taken
| out an additional loan to pay for the services, while 55 per cent
| of consumers paying late had used at least two different buy now,
| pay later providers in the past six months."
|
| https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/one-in-five...
| interesting22 wrote:
| Very sad to see this. I seriously expected Afterpay to become
| Australia's first $1t tech company.
| azemetre wrote:
| Kinda amazed at how different the leadership is between Square
| and Twitter under Dorsey. You can tell which company he is
| spending most of his time with and which one is getting
| neglected.
| scrollaway wrote:
| You can?
|
| ... Which is which? Because I genuinely can't.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| How does Afterpay make money if they do not charge interest?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Merchant fee (same as paid by a merchant when accepting a CC)
| which subsidizes the zero percent financing payment plan to the
| consumer.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| thanks!
| [deleted]
| unclekev wrote:
| Merchant Fees + Late Payment Fees on accounts is where all
| their money comes from.
| neximo64 wrote:
| A very generous merchant fee 2-3x what is usually charged
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| ~25% of their revenue comes from late fees to consumers. 75%
| from merchants.
|
| They're your standard loan shark predator disguised with flashy
| marketing and bankrolled by VCs.
| interesting22 wrote:
| Given that:
|
| - their late fees are capped - there is zero interest charge
| - they have a policy of never taking legal action to pursue
| payment - non-payments don't affect your credit rating
|
| On what is your argument based? There is literally nothing in
| common.
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| Ok so Square has opted to engage in predatory practices. Noted.
| junon wrote:
| I'm completely out of the loop here but plan to integrate
| Stripe into a new product. Can you elaborate?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I think he's saying that these big entrenched players
| immediately buy up any competition or threats.
|
| Meaning this isn't really any sort of free market, if you are
| so large you can absorb or destroy smaller entities ensuring
| that you will always be the leader in your market. And
| because governments have no teeth when it comes to monopolies
| or anti-competition this skates by world wide.
|
| That was my read, could be wrong.
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| Afterpay is a buy now, pay later scheme. It's literally a
| loan shark service. 25% of their revenue comes from late
| fees.
|
| "The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found
| one in five buy now, pay later users is missing payments,
| half of users aged between 18 to 29 cut back on essential
| items to make repayments, and more than 1.1 million
| transactions in 2019 incurred multiple missed payment fees.
|
| It also warned 15 per cent of users, and half under 29, had
| taken out an additional loan to pay for the services, while
| 55 per cent of consumers paying late had used at least two
| different buy now, pay later providers in the past six
| months."
|
| https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/one-in-
| five...
| chirau wrote:
| I have noticed that there isn't a lot of chatter on HN about
| Square. But on closer inspection it is a fascinating success
| story. They are building and cornering a whole ecosystem there.
| And their valuation is remarkable. Not just hype, but execution.
| Kudos to them.
|
| Between them and Stripe, it's nice to have something in payments
| to admire and be excited about.
|
| I remember a time when we had to deal directly with
| Authorize.net, wow that was a mess!
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