Product Hunt Daily Digest
July 20th, 2022

Is BNPL better for businesses?

BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) has been a topic of contention. The service is aka point-of-sale loans, which you can find all over eCommerce sites these days thanks to providers like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna. Even a $17.30 pair of jeans at Forever21 can be split up into four payments of $5.77.

BNPL has its benefits (it funds this writer’s Peloton without interest). The problem is it’s a little too convenient and younger generations are paying the price — over and over again with little payments that add up to big debt. BNPL constituted 91% of consumer loans in California in 2020. Gen Z is “spending 925% more now through point-of-sale services than in January 2020.”

The controversy we’ve seen over BNPL has been appropriately focused on the consumer space. Credit companies have always been subject to regulation to protect consumers, but point-of-sale, tech-supported loans are so new that many governments are only now tackling its downsides.

But what about BNPL for business? tranch’s launch in this space caught our eye earlier this week. At a basic level, the model seems much less problematic for companies — decision-makers are more experienced with defined budgets.

tranch offers an embedded BNPL solution for SaaS companies. This means businesses can get paid upfront and offer their customers flexibility for larger payments.

tranch got its start after co-founder Philip Kelvin realized while working as a CFO that payment options were lacking — “all offline, all painful.” In addition to enabling online payments that you can spread out, tranch lets businesses use their account to fund other large invoices with suppliers.

The community had their interest piqued by the concept, many noting its potential for SaaS companies and agencies who work with startups and SMBs. The makers at tranch closed a pre-seed earlier this year and joined YC’s Summer 2022 cohort, so things are starting to heat up.

What do you think of BNPL for business?

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