Jack Dorsey’s Square snaps up Australia’s Afterpay for $29bn

Australia’s biggest deal highlights the popularity of the buy now, pay later model which has upended traditional credit.

Square, the payments firm of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, will purchase buy now, pay later (BNPL) pioneer Afterpay for $29bn, creating a global-transactions giant in the biggest buyout of an Australian firm. The takeover underscores the popularity of a business model that has upended consumer credit by charging merchants a fee to offer small point-of-sale loans that their shoppers repay in interest-free instalments, bypassing credit checks. It also locks in a remarkable share-price run for Afterpay, whose stock traded below 10 Australian dollars ($7.3) in early 2020 and has since soared as the COVID-19 pandemic – and stimulus payments to a workforce stuck at home – saw a rapid shift to shopping online.