Company: Payl8r
Managing Director: Samantha Fogerty
Website: https://www.payl8r.com
Description: Payl8r is a millennial buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm that was launched 2016 and has been regulated from Day One. They’re huge advocates of responsible lending and ensuring customers get all the joy making a new purchase brings whilst securing and improving their Financial Wellbeing.
About Payl8r
Payl8r is a millennial buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm that was launched 2016 and has been regulated from Day One. They’re huge advocates of responsible lending and ensuring customers get all the joy making a new purchase brings whilst securing and improving their Financial Wellbeing.
Over the last year, they’ve seen an 334% increase in lending over the last 12 months as Klarna cuts its workforce by 10%.
One of the main challenges they’ve had to overcome is being tarred with the same brush as other lenders, who are unregulated, and have brought media controversy to an industry that is able to lend fairly and responsibly.
Payl8r is regulated so if a customer is accepted, their loan is logged with the credit bureau and will show on their credit file, which can help them get finance elsewhere – often for big life-purchases like buying a house or car. Logged loans help other lenders make decisions about their customers – what they owe and how well they manage their repayments – so they can make a more holistic decision on whether another line of credit is feasible. As the vast majority of other lenders aren’t regulated, they don’t log loans and Payl8r doesn’t get the same transparency but their use of open banking at the point of application means they overlay decisioning with real time affordability data, making the process more meaningful than credit checks alone.
Managing director, Samantha Fogerty, continues to lead the conversation around the need for better industry regulation but also for the use of open banking as a legal requirement for credit assessing in the same way that credit checks are. Payl8r is a trailblazer in the use of open banking at the point of application and wants other BNPL providers like Klarna to follow suit in order to offer safer lending for borrowers as it offers a more accurate picture of a consumer’s financial situation and risk level.
Payl8r believes, as the innovators, fintech BNPLs should be doing everything in their power to improve financial wellbeing and help consumers manage their money, pay off debt, spread costs, improve credit scores and correct credit misuse. It encourages lenders to follow its lead to ‘do things differently’ and challenge the way banks and other institutions have operated for years.
Notable Achievements
This year they became the exclusive buy now pay later partner for Faces Consent, an innovative app used by the aesthetics industry to create client consent forms and purchase pharmaceutical products. The partnership is expected to bring in £24 million in revenue to Payl8r in the first nine to 12 months.
They’re constantly working on their product offering and believe it stands head and shoulders above competitors.
Plans for the future
• Diversifying into different loan products and will have direct loans coming out this year
• Entering the gift market with an access gift card
• Offering bespoke lending software so companies can create their own finance products
