Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc unveiled a record US$28.7 billion deal to snap up Australia’s fast-growing buy-now, pay-later firm Afterpay Ltd, in a major bet on the burgeoning sector, sending its share price soaring yesterday.
The Australian fintech was founded six years ago and allows consumers to buy everything from laptops to flights in staggered payments without interest.
“Square and Afterpay have a shared purpose,” Dorsey — who made his billions through Twitter Inc — said, while announcing the deal on Sunday. “We built our business to make the financial system more fair, accessible and inclusive.”
Afterpay makes money by taking a commission from retailers and charging fees to late-paying customers.
It boasts 16 million customers in Australia, Britain, Canada and the US.
Consumer advocacy groups have long voiced concern that buy now, pay later services could encourage people — especially the young — to spend beyond their means.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has reported that one in five such customers are missing payments.
The Square-Afterpay deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, and at A$39 billion (US$28.7 billion) would be the largest deal in Australian corporate history.
Afterpay’s share surged more than 20 percent yesterday as Sydney’s ASX stock market rallied to an all-time high.
Afterpay’s shareholders are to own 18.5 percent of the new company.
Afterpay cofounders Anthony Eisen and Nick Molnar said the deal was “an important recognition of the Australian technology sector as homegrown innovation continues to be shared more broadly throughout the world.”
ONE OF THE LARGEST
The deal would create one of the world’s largest digital payments companies, and set Dorsey up to challenge established rival PayPal Holdings Inc, as well as Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Google and other tech behemoths who are eyeing the sector.
In Australia, less than half of all retail transactions under US$10 are made in cash, according to the latest figures from the country’s central bank, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the shift toward mobile payments worldwide.
Square plans to integrate Afterpay into its Seller and Cash App products, making Afterpay available for in-person transactions.
Cash App has about 70 million active users per year.
Square also announced in early last month that it was working on a real-world wallet for safely pocketing bitcoin.
Hardware wallets can be used to store digital currency offline, synching with applications for transactions on the Internet as needed.
Another option for cryptocurrency owners is to use “virtual” wallets, essentially trusting third parties to keep money safe and using passwords to access funds.
Dorsey said on Twitter that bitcoin is a currency for the masses, and that it is important to provide ways for people to hold it that do not involve entrusting it to outside parties.
He envisioned a bitcoin wallet that makes it easy for people to use some of it for shopping, for example through smartphones, while protecting the rest of the cryptocurrency.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
RSS