Limepay, a buy now pay later (BNPL) provider, has been selected by Domain (ASX:DHG) – an Australian property marketplace – to provide credit services with a new product called “MarketNow” according to a note from the company. MarketNow Payments Pty Ltd is a joint venture between Domain and Limepay, and will become more broadly available to Australian real estate agencies early in 2021.
MarketNow is described as a secure online payment gateway that allows real estate agencies to collect the total marketing costs from owners upfront when selling their property. Vendors have the option to defer payment of up to $25,000.
Limepay’s service is said to be specifically tailored to specific needs in contrast to a one size all approach by some other BNPL services.
Limepay founder and CEO, Tim Dwyer said:
“The traditional application of BNPL sees retailers offering an interest-free purchase with four equal repayments, delivered by one or multiple third-party providers. In contrast, the Limepay platform has been built to create a superior and bespoke white-label payments and BNPL solution for all merchants. Our native approach has made it quite straightforward to cross over from a retail application to a real estate application. The result is that individual merchants – like Domain’s real estate agents – are able to use MarketNow to innovate around their vendor customers, and create a relationship around payments that allows them to build on and retain their own unique customer insights, relationships, and performance data.”
Dwyer touted Domain’s selection of Limepay over competing services.
“It’s clear that Domain has decided to use its payments and BNPL offering as a form of competitive advantage, not just a means to optimise transactions.”
Jason Pellegrino, Managing Director and CEO at Domain said his company is evolving from an online classifieds portal to a property marketplace:
“We are building customer-centric solutions inhouse or through strategic relationships with best-in-class technology companies. This ensures our users and customers have access to an ecosystem containing everything they need throughout the journey of buying, owning, renting, and selling property. In the case of payments, an issue we recognised was that sellers often have a limited marketing budget, but still rely heavily on widespread exposure for their listing in order to maximise the chance of a successful sale. The Limepay Domain venture will enable agents to grow their business and ease cash flow strain both on and beyond the Domain platform, and help achieve better outcomes for their vendors and their business.”