The $4b 'buy now, pay later' startup built on a legal loophole


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“I’m pretty bad when it comes to shopping,” Amanda*, a 23-year-old disability worker based in Melbourne tells Fairfax Media. “If I liked it, I’d Afterpay it”.


It’s been said that the ultimate goal for a tech startup is to become a verb. If that’s the case, then Sydney-based Afterpay has well and truly made it.


David Hancock, executive director and group head, Anthony Eisen, executive chairman, and Nicholas Molnar, executive director and CEO of Afterpay.

David Hancock, executive director and group head, Anthony Eisen, executive chairman, and Nicholas Molnar, executive director and CEO of Afterpay.


Photo: James Brickwood

Amanda started using the buy now, pay later service in 2016. She used it to purchase clothes, electronics and Christmas presents.  But when her financial circumstances changed, she quickly ran into trouble.


“When I started using it I was getting good money from work. I could afford the repayments, I always made sure I would do it the day after or two days after I got paid,” she recounts. “But then I had problems with my car, and I wasn’t working. I had to use pretty much everything I had to fix my car. I fell behind.”


Amanda is one of the millions of Australians who has bought products on Afterpay- the payments platform that has become both a cultural phenomenon, and a sharemarket sensation. But she is among the relatively few of them – if you believe the company – who has encountered strife after using it.


Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sbsnews-topstories/~3/GZwC-0lj5wI/ferry-carrying-50-people-missing-near-kiribati-for-more-than-a-week

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