Afterpay Valuation, page-1779

I still think APT's moat is an issue. It was something I was very wary of when long ($5-40 and over two years). Retailers and consumers are going to eventually push back against 3-6% merchant fees. Sorry, but lets take a benchmark example. You have two economies, one uses cash and the second uses BNPL. Eventually the cash economy prevails because it simply does have an arbitrary 4-6% consumer tax (and when I say cash I include direct electronic payment). Whilst Australian legislation doesn't let retailers charge excess payment fees, it does allow them to pass on specific fees. Contractually APT doesn't allow retailers to pass on fees. Legislation doesn't allow credit card companies to bar retailers from passing on fees. It will not be long before the same legislation gets applied to BNPL services. And rightly so. Retailers have to pass on the fees somehow and presently they do across the board. Why should financially diligent consumers subsidize people who can't balance their budgets.

The world is fall of morons who use credit cards and BNPL for convenience without thinking of how much extra society en masse pays. Eventually the regulators step in and do the thinking for them.