Openpay Group Ltd
(ASX: OPY) shares are under the spotlight today after the buy now, pay later player announced its US launch and record trading.
US Launch
Openpay announced this morning that it is commencing its launch into US with its consumer and business to business platforms.
The company said it has a strong deal pipeline with partnership discussions with foundational partners in banking, merchant and large payment processor sectors at advanced stages.
As part of this, Openpay has hired Brian Shniderman who has a lot of experience in the payments and fintech advisory industry. He joins from Deloitte where he founded and grew the firm’s globally top-ranked payments practice. He will be the US CEO and global chief strategy officer.
Mr Shniderman said: “It’s clear that consumers and merchants want and need much more transparent fair and flexible alternatives to traditional credit cards and BNPL options that lack transparency and charge unreasonable rates. I joined Openpay US because this is an amazing company leading the shift towards a much more consumer friendly and merchant-centric payments future. Merchants I’ve advised were contacting me to help them find a better option. Openpay is the clear solution, and they’ve agreed.”
Openpay will focus on similar industries as Australia and UK, including retail to scale quickly and sectors like automotive and healthcare.
Strong trading in November
Openpay said that it set new records with November total transaction value (TTV) of $35.7 million, up from a previous record of $25.8 million. This was a result of merchant activations combined with the sales with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Click Frenzy.
Its Black Friday 2020 was 97% higher than 2019’s Black Friday. At the end of November, Openpay had 1.3 million active plans, up 232% compared to the prior corresponding period, while active customers rose 139% to 427,000. Active merchants grew by 35% to 2,476.
The company also said its UK business is growing strongly. It now has 53 merchants including brands like JD Sports, Watchshop, Wolves FC (soccer), The Hut Group and Fragrance House.
Summary thoughts
This seems like a solid update by Openpay. In a competitive industry, you want to have the right people on your team to help the business grow and stand out. Particularly if they have useful existing relationships with potential clients. Openpay could be one to watch, but I like other ASX growth shares in the payments space more like Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH) and EML Payments Ltd (ASX: EML).
