One of Europe’s leading payment processors has announced that it will be expanding its product range and services to include the alternative finance market through an alliance with small business cash advance outfit Liberis. In order to service the alternative finance market, WorldPay will create a new business unit, Worldpay Business Finance and through Liberis will offer small businesses the ability to take an unsecured cash advance based on their future credit and debit card sales.
Commenting on the move, Dave Hobday, UK managing director Worldpay said,
“We work with around 280,000 small businesses in the UK and they make up a large proportion of our customers, so we want to help them flourish. By letting companies access cash relating to their future earnings, we are giving them the chance to grow in line with their ambition and potential.”
Small businesses have always been one of the hardest demographics for the payments industry to target and while progress is being made through new efforts with low cost payment hardware and software, there is a logical paring between payment industry players and those operating in the alternative finance market. The WorldPay move is just one example and shows that there is broader industry interest and one can expect further announcements in the future.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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