The Buy Now, Pay Later Party Is Officially Over

It took less than eight hours for any last hopes of big returns from the buy now, pay later sector to be extinguished.

First, from Stockholm, came confirmation that Commonwealth Bank-backed giant Klarna had raised $US800 million ($1.2 billion) in new capital at a valuation of just $US6.7 billion, 12 months after it was valued at $US45.6 billion.

Zip co-founder Larry Diamond; Sezzle’s Charlie Youakim.

Then, on Tuesday morning in Sydney, local BNPL battler Zip announced it would terminate its much-hyped merger with ASX-listed rival Sezzle, with Zip paying Sezzle a $US11 million termination fee, equivalent to almost 5 per cent of its market value.

The BNPL party is officially over. As the industry’s biggest players attempt to reassess their balance between growth and survival, investors – from the mums and dads who rode the boom, to the venture capitalists who fuelled the sector’s largely profitless growth – must reassess the outlook for a sector that faces headwinds from rising interest rates, falling consumer spending and increasing regulation.

While there may be value in BNPL as a provider of targeted marketing leads for merchants, it is far from clear how this competitive advantage can be turned into a sustainable, profitable model for the BNPL sector.

The 78 per cent fall in the value of Sezzle since it and Zip announced their merger on February 28 helps explain why the deal is off. Whatever benefits of scale and cost-cutting the deal offered – $130 million of synergies in total – have apparently been overshadowed by growing concerns about bad debts in the BNPL sector, as questionable credit risk management inside these businesses collides with rising interest rates, falling consumer spending and slower economic growth, particularly in the US market most BNPL groups have targeted.

Sezzle shares promptly plunged 35 per cent after the termination of the deal was announced, with Zip rising 10 per cent.

The end of the merger leaves an obvious question of how these two businesses survive on their own.

Consolidation did look like the obvious way for weaker players to navigate the sector’s nuclear winter. But such is the deterioration of conditions in the sector it appears the boards of Zip and Sezzle have come to the view that bigger customer bases and lower costs are no help if they simply mean a bigger pile of bad debts and more losses.

CBA still marginally ahead at Klarna

Next to the mess at Sezzle and Zip, the glass-half-full view of Klarna’s fundraising is that it actually got done; Klarna chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski claimed on Monday night, the raising was “a testament to the strength of Klarna’s business … during the steepest drop in global stock markets in over 50 years”.

Indeed, if Siemiatkowski was chastened by the fact the company’s valuation has fallen from $US45.6 billion to $US6.7 billion since June 2021 – when Japan’s infamously big-spending VC giant Softbank invested – he wasn’t showing it.

He suggested the valuation plunge was in line with listed peers and heroically presented a table showing how the valuations of Klarna and BNPL peers have fared since the end of 2018.

Affirm and Block (which was formerly called Square andacquired former BNPL giant Afterpay last year for $38 billion) saw their valuations rise 78 per cent and 54 per cent to the end of June 30 this year, while PayPal is down 18 per cent.

But the value of Klarna has soared 219 per cent from $US2.1 billion to $6.7 billion – although the company failed to mention it has raised $US3.5 billion over that period.

Commonwealth Bank, which owns just under 5 per cent of Klarna, tipped more money into the business in the latest raising, effectively allowing it to maintain its shareholding.

CBA acquired its 5 per cent stake for $US300 million across tranches of $US100 million and $US200 million in August 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

While the bank will reflect the big drop in Klarna’s valuation in its end-of-year accounts in August, it is still marginally ahead on its investment, with its stake worth about $US335 million at the current valuation.

Like Siemiatkowski, CBA is also looking on the bright side of the road.

“We remain supportive of Klarna and this is reflected by our participation in its capital raising announced yesterday,” a spokesman said.

“Since our initial investment in 2019, Klarna has almost trebled its global revenue, customer base and transaction volumes and now generates $US1 billion in gross profit from its established European markets.”

New young customers

But CBA is inadvertently making a telling point here. While chief executive Matt Comyn bought into this business to learn more about BNPL and the shift away from traditional banking products such as credit cards – it also co-owns Klarna’s operations in Australia and New Zealand – CBA is effectively saying a big chunk of Klarna’s new valuation stems not from BNPL, but from its traditional European banking operations, which take deposits in Germany and Northern Europe.

That is not to say that CBA believes BNPL is necessarily dead.

The view inside the bank is that the stunning growth in BNPL services in recent years – Klarna has grown to 30 million active users in a couple of years in the US and has trebled volumes in the last 12 months – does reflect a desire from younger consumers to move away from credit cards and a willingness to use alternate payment methods.

In addition, CBA sees the ability for BNPL services providers to introduce new, young customers to merchants as being highly prized in an omnichannel world where customer acquisition is difficult and expensive. While paying in instalments has clearly been commoditised, BNPL players that can prove to merchants they can deliver qualified leads from big customer bases should still be able to charge for that service.

But the big question is how these BNPL providers can actually make money on a sustainable basis.

Acquiring customer bases is expensive, particularly if lowering credit standards to build customer numbers means higher bad debts in a deteriorating economic environment. Intense competition in the sector means increasing merchant fees is going to be difficult. And regulation is likely to both increase compliance costs and cap the ability of BNPL players to chase bad debts and increase fees for late payment.

Klarna will be the butt of jokes on financial markets for a long time to come, but at least that $US800 million buys it time to work out what the new model looks like.