Dwayne Gefferie Discusses 4 BNPL Opportunities at Divido Kick Off

“BNPL will reach $1 Trillion by 2028 with a CAGR of 44.6%. That’s the opportunity for lenders and merchants to grow into over the next four years.”

Payments strategist Dwayne Gefferie opened his talk at Divido’s 2024 Kickoff with a bang this week. 

“Even with a challenging environment, BNPL grew 50% through 2022 to reach $300 billion worldwide in 2023.” 

A social media phenomenon in the payments world, Dwayne started out as a data scientist with ABN AMRO way back when. He now consults on payments strategy for companies from TikTok to MediaMarkt.

Through his research Dwayne identified the four retail finance opportunities going into 2024 for lenders and merchants. Luckily for our clients, Divido’s platform can deliver solutions covering all four areas. 

Opportunity 1 – Expansion to Physical Retail

Dwayne has been looking at sales terminals that enable consumers to quickly make BNPL payments. Instant services available via API and machine learning mean consumers can receive decisions right away at the point of payment. 

Larger terminal displays and creative usage of technology such as QR codes NFC, and mobile apps can enable shoppers to self-serve retail finance in-store. Removing the sales person from the application process can free up staff time, better protect personal data and avoid embarrassing situations with declined applications.

Opportunity 2 – Cross-border E-commerce

Consumers shopping online are accessing stores worldwide, with shipping across borders, and from local warehousing. Payment methods are becoming international and that should include retail finance too. 

This is a triple win situation, with lenders growing their consumer accounts, merchants closing more international sales and consumers buying what they want from merchants and lenders they trust.

Opportunity 3 – The Unabated Rise of Embedded Finance

Many platforms provide total solutions to their customers. You have Shopify for example, building an ecommerce platform, and then moving into payments. It will be the same with retail finance. We’ll see more and more of these platform owners offering retail finance as an embedded service. Customers will simply need to activate the service, making the experience much more seamless as a result.

Opportunity 4 – Further Adoption by Traditional Retailers

You heard the opportunity – an annual growth rate of 44.6%. Traditional retailers are super focused on conversions, and they won’t ignore this. Where traditional retailers are not already in the retail finance space, they will certainly become active very soon, or they’ll miss out on huge revenue opportunities.

When asked about buy versus build for established companies looking to enter the embedded lending space, Dwayne said,

“Banks and enterprise institutions are fighting back. HSBC recently launched a money remittance service in the UK to win back market share from fintech companies Wise and Revolut. They are coming up with new ways to take on fintech.”

HSBC is currently working on an embedded retail finance solution using the Divido platform. 

“The opportunity is not to spend the next couple of years building a solution that they could buy today from someone like Divido. They need to get to market much quicker and leaner. And it’s not just about product. The real value is going to be partnering with a company who has extensive enterprise experience and history in BNPL and who has the knowledge and willingness to share.”