The Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT) share price ended the week down almost 10% after some worrisome news.
Afterpay Touch is the owner of the popular “buy now, pay later” app. As of early 2019, Afterpay had over 4 million registered users worldwide, making it one of Australia’s true technology success stories.
Afterpay’s Painful Finish To FY19
Afterpay ended the last day of FY19 down substantially for a single day, although the share price still managed to grow during the week.
The cause of the pessimism was the announcement by Visa Inc (NYSE: V) unveiling instalment payment options for shoppers.
Visa is launching a pilot program for participating issuers and merchants to offer customers an instalment payment option at the checkout using the Visa card that is already in their wallet.
Visa cardholders will have the option to divide their total purchase amount into smaller, equal payments over a defined time period on qualifying purchases, at the store and online or while travelling overseas.
The Visa Global Head of Issuer and Consumer Solutions Sam Shrauger said: “Visa’s installment capabilities are changing the game by allowing issuers to leverage an existing payment account consumers already have and are familiar with, instead of asking them to submit to a credit check, download an app or open another line of credit.
“We expect installments to become a foundational method of payment at checkout for both domestic and cross-border commerce payment transactions.”
CyberSource will be one of the leading payment management platforms to support Visa. Some of the others testing Visa’s instalment systems are: MakeMyTrip integrated with Simpl platform and Kotak Mahindra Bank in India, Alpha Bank, eMAG, ING Bank Romania and PayU in Romania, Russian Standard Bank in Russia and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Mashreq bank in United Arab Emirates.
This new system is scheduled to clients and partners in January 2020.
I know I’m getting more conscious and worried about the rising amount of competition facing Afterpay, that’s why I think the growth shares in the free report below could be better ideas than Afterpay.
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