Afterpay working on 'skeleton' Afterpay Money app

Buy now pay later giant Afterpay is working on an internal trial run of its Afterpay Money app with continuous testing underway ahead of its intended launch this year.

Afterpay was the first partner to join Westpac’s cloud-based banking-as-a-service platform, which will grant Afterpay banking capabilities such as transaction accounts and cashflow tools to its users.

In its third quarter update for 2021, Afterpay said it is pushing forward with plans to see Afterpay Money released on schedule.  

“Work continues on bringing Afterpay Money to life with launch expected in H1 FY22," it said.

“An internal pilot team is currently working on a skeleton app in production with functioning deposit and savings accounts, with iterative prototype testing continuing with customers ahead of launch.”

Elsewhere, Afterpay said it had 650,000 new sign-ups to its Afterpay Card in the first three weeks of April following the product's launch late March.

Afterpay Card is a contactless Mastercard stored in a Google Pay or Apple Wallet that enables BNPL purchases in physical stores. 

This is expected to fast-track in-store volumes, which already represent roughly 24 percent of primary sales across Australia and New Zealand at pre-Covid levels.

Additionally, Afterpay said its app was downloaded more than 2 million times in the quarter,with 1 million downloads in March alone.

Potential US listing

The company has also begun expanding its global reach further with plans to list in the United States.

Afterpay said it hasn’t made any decisions yet as to potential investor structure, however the company does intend to remain an Australian-headquartered company. 

Any listing would be subject to US regulatory approvals and market conditions. No timeline has been set for any move.

Afterpay said it believes a US listing would accommodate its global growth ambitions, which include launches in Spain, France and Italy over the quarter, trading under the name Clearpay.

The US market is now Afterpay’s largest contributor to its underlying sales, increasing 211 percent over the most recent quarter.