Now awaiting takeoff for the U.S. travel market. That would be U.K. fintech, Fly Now Pay Later, which has just raised additional capital and is testing a lending platform for U.S. travel companies and their flying customers. BNPL is a hot lending and payments model right now for retailers and their customers.
But it’s also a crowded field of lenders vying for market share. The travel vertical in the U.S. has Uplift, a travel-focused lender, plus some card networks and issuers offer their own installment pay deals as well. So Fly Now Pay Later will be operating in a busy flight pattern, but the pent-up demand for U.S. travel should greatly expand the market.
The following excerpt from a Finextra article reports more on the topic:
Defying the downturn in the travel industry, a UK fintech offering consumers a new and more flexible way to finance travel in a post covid-19 world has raised a further £10m ($14m) in Series A funding, bringing its total to £45m ($62m). Fly Now Pay Later, founded by CEO Jasper Dykes (32), secured the equity investment co-led by asset management firms Revenio Capital and Taurus Wealth Advisors, and builds on the £35m ($48m) of equity and debt Series A investment raised at the beginning of last year.
The alternative payments provider that was developed exclusively for the travel sector enables customers to spread the cost of a trip over up to 12 monthly installments by partnering with leading travel merchants or directly to consumers through its Anywhere app
Hundreds of travel companies use Fly Now Pay Later to offer finance (from as little as 0% APR) to holidaymakers, who can make repayments in affordable scheduled installments. Its merchant partnerships range from SME travel operators to leading operators like Malaysian Airlines, Lastminute.com and TravelUp.
Leisure domestic travel in the United States has been less impacted than Europe, with continued interstate flights operating at around “75 percent of pre-pandemic levels” during peak holiday season, according to Dykes.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group
