One of the world’s largest “buy now, pay later” companies, Zip Payment firm is looking to enter the stock and crypto market. It’s planning to offer crypto trading services within the next year.
A report by Reuters established from the Zip co-founder Peter Gray that most of the platforms’ clients were requesting crypto trading services and a crypto wallet. Therefore the decision to join the crypto industry is more customer-fueled than for any other reason.
The company is looking to provide trading services that will keep the younger audience more engaged. The co-founder states that they are seeking additional products and services that are relevant to the younger generation.
However, he fell short on mentioning the timelines and the framework which the company will use to launch the Zip crypto trading platform. Instead, he only mentioned that the project will be first available to the US QuadPay unit that has more than 3.8million customers. They seek to take advantage of the advanced US crypto services and then target the Australian markets. The company also plans to rebrand Quadpay into Zip in the US markets for a single brand name.
Zip plans to offer a platform for buying and selling shares and other crypto-related tokens, more than it is for savings. Therefore, it will operate more like a crypto exchange than a wallet.
So far, Zip has been successful in the highly competitive BNPL industry. It currently has a market cap of $4.1billion. AfterPay, the pioneer of the industry in 2015, is Zip’s biggest competitor and has a market cap of $31.4billion. They both remain the industry giants as they have the biggest portions of the market. At the same time, Apple is planning to join the BNPL industry. It will allow Apple users to purchase its products within four equal interest-free instalments.
To introduce the new stock and crypto offerings, Zip is looking to use existing infrastructure and partner with existing businesses. It is also willing to acquire specialists or build the necessary platforms.
What does this mean for the Australian crypto market?
The introduction of the crypto services by Zip is yet another evidence of the cryptocurrency being the future of the mainstream economy. Australia is one of the countries with a vibrant crypto economy. The country treats crypto as any other financial asset, hence factoring in capital taxes.
So far, the retail crypto use is on an influx. Several crypto payment solutions are coming up for the Australian market. Only the other day, Aussie crypto exchange Coinjar partnered with MasterCard for crypto cards. The cards that would be made available for digital and physical transactions would allow for crypto use in any outlet that accepts MasterCard. MasterCard has also partnered with other businesses to simplify cryptocurrencies to fiat conversions. This would increase the number of businesses that accept crypto payments in the country and globally. Along with MasterCard, Visa has also increased its efforts to offer crypto-related services in Australia.
Zip’s crypto platform in Australia and the US reinforces the crypto offerings in these countries.