Buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings have existed for a long time, but increased in popularity as the pandemic made more people shop online and conserve cash. Though BNPL has taken off in most parts of the world, it’s yet to pick up steam in Africa. But in countries such as South Africa and Egypt, there is a newfound surge in demand for such services. In the latest development, Sympl, an Egyptian fintech founded only five months ago, announced today that it has picked up $6 million in seed funding following a soft launch. There’s a little twist to Sympl’s offerings which the founders made in a bid to localize its product for the Egyptian market.
Sympl says it targets over 50 million debit and credit cardholders in the country. And like any BNPL service, the company wants to incentivize a portion of this demographic at checkout, in-store or online. With no pre-registration required and payment plans approved at checkout, Sympl allows merchants to sell directly to consumers on short-term, fully interest-free (zero-interest) payment plans. A typical BNPL model involves a purchase split into multiple equal payments. The first payment, usually 25% of the total purchase, is made at checkout, while the rest are paid in three installments. Sympl operates a different method the company says will help its customers save better while making purchases. When customers check out from one of Sympl’s merchants, the company acknowledges the funds in the customers’ bank accounts and charges them an upfront fixed fee of 100 Egyptian pounds. The fee covers the future collection of repayments and remains the same irrespective of the purchase amount. Then Sympl offers customers the option to use a zero-interest pay later plan. The rest of the payments can be made between three to five installments. The company said that the plans cater to different segments of customers’ employment status — gig workers, freelancers, self-employed and regular employees. Sympl has onboarded up to 240 merchants with products in electronics, fashion, appliances, furniture, travel, healthcare, jewellery and education, the company said. It plans to reach 1,000 stores by mid next year. Henna also mentioned that Sympl is growing 25% week-on-week in terms of the number of transactions made on the platform.