The ‘buy now, pay later’ business has turned its focus towards the UK, where AfterPay Touch Group Limited [ASX:APT] will use the name of its already acquired business: Clearpay.

At the time of writing, Afterpay’s share price is still rising after the UK launch announcement, trading at $27.52, up 0.77 on top of yesterday’s 5.47%

AfterPay/ClearPay details

On Tuesday, AfterPay executive director David Hancock told a Macquarie Australian investment conference in Sydney, that:

‘We will be using the same logo, we will be using the same tech, one of the reasons why we’ve done that is that there’s a number of issues that we need to deal with, and the quickest way for us to get into market was to actually use the ClearPay name.’

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, AfterPay makes up 10% of online sales, with one in every four Millennials using the platform in Australia.

‘We are the largest referrer outside of Google for leads,’ Mr Hancock said.

‘So many of our retailers really want to be on the platform because they are generating new leads for new customers.’ Mr Hancock said.

AfterPay is playing quite an influential role in engaging with customers on behalf of retailers. This is especially true for David Jones, who is working with AfterPay to expand its user base to include the growing proportion of 37­ to 55-year-olds, saying:

‘Whilst we are a Millennial-focused company, we are seeing a halo effect of that pushing into other cohorts.’

AfterPay’s share price 2019

Heading further into 2019, investors can expect that AfterPay will continue on its mammoth expansion strategies.

Mr Hancock told a Macquarie investment conference on Tuesday about the advantages from the UK strategy:

‘We’re building a strong security hub and the advantage about actually being in the UK is that you can get different talent. Because you’re close to eastern Europe, there’s a whole lot of security analysts and a number of other things that are essential over there.’

But shareholders should be mindful that global competition in similar services could bring AfterPay’s rising share price to a bit of a slowdown.

That being said Mr Hancock seems confident in the unique product offering of AfterPay’s business model:

‘We don’t see anyone as a direct competitor.’

 

Originally posted on: Money Morning Australia

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