Buy now, pay later provider Zip Co has chased local rival Afterpay in expanding overseas by acquiring payment platforms that will give them access to markets in the US, UK, New Zealand and South Africa.
Zip’s acquisition of New Zealand based PartPay also gives the company an 8.9 per cent stake in the US’ QuadPay and a 24.7 per cent interest in South Africa’s Payflex.
A further investment of around US$11.4 million will grow Zip’s share of QuadPay to 15%, making them a strategic shareholder and giving them the right to appoint one member to the board.
The company will issue shares worth NZ$50.8 million up front for PartPay and an additional NZ$15 million if the company meets performance milestones for the forthcoming financial years.
PartPay founder John O’Sullivan as well as its key management team will stay with the company as it is absorbed by Zip.
Zip CEO and managing director Larry Diamond said the acquisition marks “the beginning of Zip’s global expansion story”.
“Whilst we see significant upside in the core Australian business, we feel the timing is opportune to begin investing abroad as we seek to build a global payments business.” 
“PartPay has proven experience swiftly launching their technology in four different markets… and we look forward to working with its highly capable marketing team,” Mr Diamond said.
Zip recently tapped NAB to scare up investors for a $400 million master trust.
The overseas expansion follows in the footsteps of Australian tech darling Afterpay, who have recently made moves to expand globally as well.
At home, the two platforms face competition from Flexigroup’s Humm platform, and will soon be joined by Latitude Financial and the Commonwealth Bank backed Swedish fintech Klarna.
It comes on the back of new research from CouriersPlease showing 18 per cent of Australians use a BNPL service when shopping online, compared to only 3 per cent of in-store customers.
