News
Afterpay success disrupts bank’s credit card strategy
InvestorDaily
Superfund-owned bank ME has shelved plans to launch new credit cards after witnessing the success of “buy now, pay later” players like Afterpay and Zip. The bank posted its full-year results this week, which showed that statutory net profit after tax fell by nearly 25 per cent to $67.1 million, down from $89.1 million the previous year. The lender recorded $14.4 million of impairment losses in its credit card business.
ME CEO Jamie McPhee said the bank halted its work in bringing more credit cards to market after recognising a structural shift away from cards and was therefore focusing its work on digital wallets. He explained: “Our work on digital wallets is progressing. We wanted to bring that forward, and we’ve taken the opportunity to relook at the credit card market, and what we’ve been seeing is that the number of credit cards are in decline, while we’ve seen a significant increase in the buy now, pay later entrants Afterpay, Zip, Flexi,” he said.
The rest of this article can be found at investordaily.com.au.
Latest market insights
X feed