Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is becoming popular and trendy worldwide. It is projected to have the most significant impact in Africa, where poor economic conditions limit people’s purchasing power.
This has forced them to use buy-now-pay-later options.
PayJustNow, South Africa’s largest BNPL company, CEO Craig Newborn said according to reports, “The BNPL industry is booming, and we’ve continued to see high adoption rates, signing up a stadium full of customers each month.” This indicates continental demand for this payment method.
PayJustNow is a four-year-old Buy Now, Pay Later company in South Africa. It won Best BNPL Service at the 2023 Global Payments Innovation Awards.
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The company’s Co-Founder and CEO affirmed that South Africans, like everyone else, have credit issues and utilize more credit to get by each month when asked about the BNPL plan. He agrees that this should raise warning flags for credit givers.
It’s fascinating how this severe lack of purchasing power creates a dual problem. First, Africa needs BNPL service more due to financial insecurity. However, these financial limitations limit people’s ability to pay later. The balance must be maintained, and African BNPL enterprises like PayJustNow play a role.
To safeguard your discretionary money from rising inflation and interest rates while making those crucial purchases without breaking the bank is a challenge for consumers today. Craig said Buy Now, Pay Later is becoming a cashflow-friendly planning tool that helps people maximise their money and avoid extra debt.
He also stated that BNPL services across the continent must do more to encourage responsible credit use. More rigorous credit verification and credit education are needed. Customers can afford to repay and utilise BNPL responsibly with these.
“When I founded PayJustNow, I wanted to increase access to responsible credit and encourage financial literacy in South Africans. Despite our rapid expansion over the previous four years, I’m glad to say we’ve kept our default rate below 2%. This shows our commitment to consumer protection.”
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BNPL is a crucial African Fintech player
Financial technology dominates the African tech sector, as it does everywhere else. It has received the most funds and supplied the most answers to continental issues. Africa’s fintech solutions focus on financial inclusion, unlike elsewhere. This primarily describes a poor continent.
Thus, the most prominent fintech solutions target the financially excluded. This group dominates. Perhaps no system would serve the financially excluded more than BNPL. Its unique financial solution lets most people get credit that would otherwise be out of reach.
Buy Now Pay Later was new in Africa a few years ago, and many doubted it would work. The African retail credit industry has shifted, and BNPL is swiftly becoming an alternative payment solution that continues to win over consumers and retailers.
The PayJustNow CEO credits the African fintech industry’s perseverance in pioneering innovations to improve consumers’ and businesses’ lives.
“Our continent’s many challenges have made us resilient and agile in a changing macroeconomic environment. “Africa is a force in Fintech and product innovations that solve local problems,” he remarked.
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Winners of Best BNPL and Future Plans
PayJustNow was awarded Best BNPL at the Global Payments Innovation Awards in August 2023. An African startup working in such a dangerous sector and catching up to the rest of the world was a significant accomplishment.
Craig Newborn attributes this to the company’s ability to listen to clients and monitor market developments. Through these tendencies, the organisation may offer more leading solutions to clients.
The journey has been thrilling. We cherish our 75% repeat customers because they love the product and are likelier to shop at merchants that provide it. We reached 1 million client signups on August 31, 2023! We have over 2,500 directly integrated merchants and 5900 online and in-store locations in South Africa. Our GMV was R544 million in June 2023.”
Newborn also said the company has 626,726 app users, and its website gets close to 2 million monthly hits.
When asked about other services it offers to its many customers, and the CEO said it has a “Deals” section where customers can browse merchant offers and promotions right from their account on the PayJustNow website or app. This section gets more than 120,000 clicks and over 5 million views per month on average.
There is also a “Pay-Up” Merchant app that lets store owners sign up customers via QR code, SMS, or email. The merchants can also get real-time data, analytics, and company or customer insights, process real-time refunds, and get help from the PayJustNow team. This service is already being used by 3278 businesses who have already signed up.
Weaver Fintech, a division of HiL, bought an 85% share in PayJustNow at the beginning of 2022 after seeing the company’s incredible growth and huge potential.
There is an apparent change in how Africans spend their money. The CEO of PayJustNow says that this is because more people than ever are looking for deals and savings. To get people to work with the system, he supports a system that gives people exactly what they want.
So, he says that his company will keep adding to its “Deals” feature, which is already popular with customers who want to save money and stores who want to reach new customers. They also want to spread the word about their brands and increase sales. They aim to be the first place for South Africans to shop for the best deals and sales from the country’s best stores.
“We know we’re on the right track to make a difference in the lives of consumers and retailers because we’re the biggest BNPL provider in South Africa, and we’re known internationally,” he said.