Hey Goodfella, I do not hold zip, but I just wanted to add the...

Hey Goodfella, I do not hold zip, but I just wanted to add the fact that microloans globally are indeed very viable and profitable, even to people who are more 'financially desperate' than the Australians you are talking about. The history of microloans is very disruptive to the traditional banking system purely because 'creditworthiness' is not always the best metric to determine who should and who shouldn't receive a loan.

Most developing nations have outdated financial infrastructures, where many members of the population are 'underbanked' leaving many to swirl around in a cycle of intergenerational stagnation, the lending systems they have in these countries are archiac- with cruel interest rates or harsh physical punishments (sometimes physical punishments can be an incentive to cooperate eg, Roscas in some African nations).

The most famous example of a microloan platform would be the Grameen Bank, but throughout history, there are many examples of banking institutions organically rising, especially in Germany which has a large number of cooperative banks that performed similar functions in the 19th century, the Monte Di Pieta Italy, 15th century.. the list could go on.

Essentially where these types of institutions are lacking is in Australia, Australia is even behind on mobile banking, developing nations such as China are way ahead of us. But this is nothing new within the history of financial institutions, yet it is new in the Australian context. I think BNPL has the power to do a lot of good in society, with appropriate and not overly constrictive regulation that is.

This is just replying to primarily point 1 and 4.