Zilch, a new company that works in the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) field, has announced that it has acquired the lending firm NepFin for an amount that has not been specified by the company as yet.
the BNPL space is getting crowded every day as there are new entrants into this industry almost daily, What has really raked up this industry is the fact that even major companies like Paypal, Apple, and Klarna are entering this space with their huge clout, network, funds, and infrastructure and this has placed a lot of pressure on the existing players as they have to either fight in this saturated space or have to give up and exit this space which may not be an option for many companies.
At the same time, due to the potential seen in the BNPL industry, the investors are also queuing up to invest in companies that are working in this field as evident from the fact that Zilch raised $110 million in its Series B funding round taking the total amount raised by it to over $200 million so far. Companies like Zilch would need this funding clout to take on the biggies and this space is really heating up with the battle between the new and established players and the coming months will tell us about who will survive and who will not.
Zilch has been trying to show a difference and build a niche for itself by tying up with Mastercard so that users would get a credit card number which they can use at the checkout and the users would then have a choice to either go for instalments for making their payments or they can use this number as a normal Mastercard credit card. As long as the users pay back the full amount within 6 weeks they won’t be charged any interest or any other fees as well.
The company is looking to expand its reach and it is also looking at a launch in the US which it believes will be a major driving market in the short term. This is one of the major reasons for the acquisition of NepFin so that the users would be able to buy goods without affecting their credit ratings and this is what the partnership would be looking to achieve.
