DOU is an app and software that overlays a bank account. Banks offer credit cards to users which are essentially a form of buy now pay later that just has pre-approved credit limits and different fees. DOU is supposed to be a financial wellness application and intelligent with AI. It should therefore be able to produce a credit rating/application to give the underlying bank and come up with an agreement to offer DOU users credit, which are actually the banks customers. It could offer DOU a low rate credit kitty/facility based on the entire user groups credit score or DOU itself and be scaleable with increasing growth. DOU can monitor individual limits in real time and even make it a trendy varying credit limit for each user to see that is based on the users current financial wellness and how well they save and make bill repayments.
As DOU can already be used everywhere through Mastercard would it not make sense to just make this a "Credit/BNPL" jar and make payment point to the credit facility/jar when chosen before tapping to pay. Merchant get $ upfront as with normal credit card and use is anywhere unlike BNPL majors. They can monitor and suggest re-payment or even force a 4 re-payment option if they wish to tag on the coat tails of the BNPL norm. Or they can be cooler and say its BNPL but you choose your repayments (con the kids into essentially using an repaying a credit card on their terms). Dou can be flexible with repayments and monitor and recommend repayments when the AI sees you can afford it in the near future. DOU just need to pay the underlying bank the total interest owed on what users have used and if its that intelligent its software knows DOUs upcoming liabilities and ensure the software is tweaked to recoup this from users. It may not even require a monthly fee as credit card do. As DOU get money from transactions and DOU software pushes users to continually spend from their credit jar and rinse that credit balance over and over the transactional revenue gained from the credit/BNPL jar may be enough to not require a monthly/yearly fee as per most credit cards. DOU should place the credit from its facility into DOU user accounts/credit jar and therefore it goes through as a normal transaction that makes DOU $$$. To make even more $$ once DOU has capital it can effectively be the lender and not have to pay interest for the revolving facility and therefore collect maximum from user BNPL/credit transactions.
You have a new message from Douugh..."DOU foresees you have some bills coming up, we will reduce your BNPL/credit payment that is due next week and get you next time, Always looking out for your financial wellness, Douugh." DOU can charge for late payments just as Humm will sting its users(responsible/wellness?) if it likes. I see Humm as effectively just a middle man facilitating a credit service to DOU account holders and paying merchants upfront and charging DOU and its users a fees. Cut the middle man. They can really just make anything up with the software that overlays DOUs capital that has a lending facility tied to it. I see no reason why a credit/BNPL jar cannot exist that is backed by DOU to facilitate BNPL.
If DOU support Humm, a BNPL option that effectively allows users to spend money they do not currently have and therefore extend outside their financial means, they should have no problems offering their own credit for the same purpose and spin it in a more financially well way with varying payments to suit user, relax payment due to current pending expenses etc. etc.. Things they can not offer with Humm as Humm will have its own requirements to make $$$ that DOU can not control for its users and therefore less beneficial(if credit is beneficial).
It does not sound financially well, but banks(I know) do not make money getting people out of debt. The money is made by keeping people in debt. Software that can manipulate a users spending habits is a dangerous tool. I know how I would program DOU, and it would be to ensure users are encouraged and made to feel like they are doing well (just a little bit better than without DOU as the AI knows how they previously went when it learns from user history bank feeds) whilst ensuring they are continually spending to the limits whilst meeting their repayments and saving just enough to keep happy/addicted. I would not be so naive as to think this has not crossed minds or is already not implemented in software. Prey on the financially vulnerable. But I am a probably evil.
DOU Price at posting:
19.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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