Payright launches Bill Smoothing to aggregate utilities and annual expenses with BNPL

Where annual expenses such as vehicle registration and insurance can be hefty charges when due for renewal, fintech company Payright (ASX: PYR) has launched its new Bill Smoothing product enabling users to pay off these expenses over 3 months.

The Buy-Now-Pay-Later functionality enables users to capitalise on discounts offered by service providers when paying the annual lump sum, while paying back the sums interest-free. Bill Smoothing can also be applied to other utility bills, allowing users with unexpectedly higher bills in certain months to aggregate the expenses.

“With approximately 8.8 million residential gas and electricity customers in Australia, and a total market for electricity bill payments in excess of $9 billion per year, Payright Bill Smoothing offers customers the ability to manage the rising cost of living through an easy and affordable payment plan for their household bills,” said Payright Co-Founder and Joint-CEO, Piers Redward.

Following pilot testing, Payright has gone live with the Bill Smoothing product with existing customers shortly able to access up to $1,000 for bills where repayments will be linked to their current Payright profile.

The extension of their BNPL services into utility bills coincides with business growth plans that Payright is accelerating through the appointment of Gresham Advisory Partners to source a $100 million wholesale warehouse funding facility. By securing such a facility, Payright will be able to increase its loan book for BNPL services where they have a rapidly growing merchant partner network that has just added retailers Australian Outdoor Living, Stratco and Into Blinds.

“Following Payright’s successful IPO and the recent extension of our existing loan notes program, we are excited to have secured Gresham’s services to assist with the proposed transition to a bank warehouse facility,” said Payright Co-Founder and Joint-CEO, Myles Redward.

“The combined funding mix will provide us with an enhanced capability to aggressively accelerate growth through merchant and customer acquisition initiatives such as Bill Smoothing, along with a number of other new products scheduled for deployment in the coming months.”

For the Half-Year ended 31 December 2020, Payright reported a 38% year-on-year increase in revenue to $5.8m but like most BNPL operators, still operates at a loss having logged a $4.8m net loss over the same period.