News: APT Australia's Openpay secures $271 mln debt funding for U.S. launch

Oct 7 (Reuters) - Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Openpay Group (OPY) said it had secured $271.4 million in debt funding from Goldman Sachs Group GS.N and investment firm Atalaya Capital Management to fund its upcoming launch in the United States.

The BNPL market exploded in the past year as homebound consumers used the services to borrow and spend online during the COVID-19 pandemic, attracting big players PayPal Holdings PYPL.O , Mastercard Inc MA.N and Visa Inc V.N into the sector.

The Melbourne, Australia-based payments firm said on Thursday it will use the funding on marketing and partnerships, as it competes with bigger rivals Afterpay (APT) and Zip Co's (Z1P) Quadpay to capture the BNPL space in the United States.

"We will begin distributing BNPL in large volumes through major ecosystem partnerships like payments processors, and merchant aggregators requiring significant funding," said Brian Shniderman, Openpay's U.S. chief executive officer.

Openpay posted a record increase in its active merchants in fiscal 2021, while active customers jumped nearly 70% to 541,000 at the end of August. (https://bit.ly/3BxJkXr)