Source: Banking Summit
Banks could use “dwell time” to monitor customer engagement on their apps as Zip plans an expansion beyond buy now, pay later and PayPal allows users to spend with bitcoin.Crypto on the cards
Zip co-founder Peter Gray said its 2.5 million customers are highly engaged and Pocketbook, a financial management app that Zip purchased five years ago, could soon be rolled into the Zip app.
It would provide cash flow and budgeting tools, savings tools and tips, and insights into spending. Down the track, Zip might consider expanding into cryptocurrencies or even share trading.
“In the future, there’s a high chance that BNPL becomes commoditised, so we have very strong ambitions to expand on our digital wallet and continue to expand our product offering with regards to payments,” Mr Gray said.
But it was unlikely Zip would follow Afterpay’s banking-as-a-service strategy with Westpac, saying it might consider a “high-coupon savings product but it wouldn’t necessarily be a transactional banking account”.
PayPal’s managing director in Australia, Peter Cowan, told the Summit the acquisition of Honey last year had helped the US payments giant to develop new shopping tools and “we’re looking at how we can expand that functionality”.PayPal added a “pay in four” feature in March.
“The strategy is to look at the average customer, who would probably have 30 to 50 apps on their phone and are only using eight to 10 of them on a regular basis.
“Everyone on that phone is fighting for engagement, trying to ensure their app is the one that is used.
“So we’re working out what sort of functionality our customers are looking for and what else could we deliver to them through our app that will drive increased engagement with us as a business,” Mr Cowan said.
PayPal’s global CEO Dan Schulman said on its fourth-quarter earnings call in early February it would create a “super app” that not only offered mobile payments but investing, budgeting and crypto services.
Overnight, PayPal said it would allow customers to convert bitcoin into fiat currencies at checkouts to make purchases, a move that could help drive cryptocurrency use in everyday commerce, after last year allowing users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency in the US.
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