i just checked the Afterpay USA site and there are now 500 different retailers transacting, some of them are massive names in fashion/ retail. so the 400 number given a month ago is already out of date and up 25%. their 800 contracted means they should have 800 transacting by the end of the year.
i live in london and looked through the list of retailers on the USA site with my girlfriend.... guess what there are lots of them who have a strong retail presence in uk.
uk, particularly london, has a huge culture of online shopping which is much bigger than australia, and there is a huge 18-40yo population in london who are from overseas but living and working in london. these are mostly people who are fashion conscious, single, kid-free, earning a good living and spending most of their income on discretionary things such as entertainment, shopping and travel. anyone who has recently lived in london especially east london say shoreditch, west london say notting hill, south london say brixton will understand. the locals from far east say essex are extremely fashion obsessed and live paycheque to paycheque... check out most reality tv shows here eg love island, geordie shore, etc to get a taste for their attitudes...
my gf also says when she was 18-25yo she wishes there was afterpay because it would have prevented her getting into credit card debt that took until her 30s to clear. afterpay is a responsible and far way to spread the cost of a purchase, it is not predatory and doesnt allow anyone to get into major debt unlike a credit card, so regulators should actually prefer it to a credit card from a consumer protection perspective.
im late 30s but if i was in australia i would love to use it to spread the lumpy cost of furniture, whitegoods, flights, hotels, fancy restaurants or concert tickets. the potential is so far beyond just fashion, its immense.
i am absolutely certain that usa and uk will both be hugely successful, i see over 50mill per month by december in usa.
credit risk/ defaults will not be higher than australia... thats just baseless rubbish.
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