Kicking goals in Australia as the company responsible for coining the term ‘BNPL’, Afterpay (ASX: APT) is taking the world by storm and has selected little-known digital payments company Novatti Group (ASX: NOV) as a partner in their newest expansion territory. 

The partnership will see Novatti manage Afterpay’s payment card solutions in New Zealand where Novatti is licenced by Visa to issue prepaid cards. By linking up with Novatti, Afterpay will be able to issue Visa cards to their customers for use from digital wallets at participating merchants in New Zealand.

“This new partnership with Afterpay again highlights Novatti’s digital banking and payments ecosystem in full operation, enabling innovative fintech companies to leverage our assets to bring new products and solutions to market,” said Novatti Managing Director, Peter Cook.

“Working with Afterpay will see Novatti generate further revenue and value from existing assets, highlighting our increasing shift from a development to a monetisation phase.This is another great example of Novatti’s ability to work with the world’s most innovative fintech companies.”

Alongside the securing of Visa Principal Issuer status in both Australia and New Zealand, Novatti has been busy over the past 12 months building a network of international partners that form Novatti’s digital payments ecosystem. Just some of these include Apple, Google and Samsung for mobile payments, Visa for card issuing, Union Pay for merchant acquiring and Ripple for cross border payments are just some of those signed recently. 

As a global leader in compliance for digital payments, Novatti has quickly emerged as a partner of choice across a spectrum of businesses from startups to multinationals like Afterpay. It is this automation of regulatory procedures that Novatti has built through a combination of tech and licenses which have established high entry barriers to cement them as a market leader.

Highlighting the value Novatti can add to fintech businesses, another of Novatti’s Tier 1 partners is set to make international headlines. Selecting Novatti as their Australian partner in June 2020, US-based fintech unicorn Marqeta is set to be one of the world’s biggest upcoming IPOs with a USD $10 billion float expected.

Although their public listing will be in the United States, Marqeta has recently confirmed their Asia-Pacific headquarters will be located in Melbourne, Australia where Novatti is also headquartered. 

Given the size and growth of Marqeta and Afterpay which have selected Novatti as their domestic partners in respective regions, it’s fair to say they won’t be the last Tier 1 partners reaching out to Novatti. 

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