This past October, PerformLine hosted a panel discussion at the Money20/20 USA conference with experts from Sezzle, Alliance Data, and Snap Finance titled “Innovations and Challenges Ahead for Lenders in the BNPL Era.”
For the 6th and final part of this BNPL blog series, here are each panelists' top takeaways and final thoughts from the discussion.
Compliance As An Opportunity
We talk about and tend to think about the regulatory environment as a challenge for fast-growing and scaling financial product companies, but I think in this case, more than ever, it's an opportunity.
There's not actually regulation in the U.S. yet-but we know its coming-and for all the companies who have a BNPL product, now is the time to get your compliance controls in place and to make sure that your merchant vetting process is appropriate and something that you can record and give to a regulator if they ask.
There's an opportunity to make sure that your ongoing monitoring of how merchants are talking about your brand and products is in a way that your team can wrap their minds around and actually have optics into it, not just as you are beginning to scale but through scale and beyond, which a lot of these companies up here (Sezzle, Alliance Data, Snap Finance) are a great example of.
– John Zanzarella, VP of Sales, PerformLine
Consumer Education
Consumers favor simplicity and transparency and I think consumer education is going to be a big part of that. Educating the consumer should be at the forefront of any responsible lender.
I think there are firms out there that we can deploy that can help us adapt to not only the education requirements but the future regulation as well. Some of those firms can come in and put very comprehensive strategies together to help you adapt to the regulatory change that is coming, so we are thinking about some partnerships on that front to help us remediate issues going forward.
So, that would be my one piece of advice going forward-just don't wait for the regulation to happen, get in front of it, enlist a regtech firm and get going that way and be proactive about it.
– Rick Cunningham, SVP of Strategy and Business Development, Alliance Data
Solving Consumer Painpoints
We are all solving different consumer pain points. I think as we continue to talk to brands and retailers, they care about their growth strategy, they care about cost, but they really care about solving consumer pain points.
And I think as an industry, we all have different places in the market and we all solve different things and different problems. And so we are seeing things like multi-install, more collaboration, and more partnerships and I think it always comes back to what that consumer wants and how you can solve it with payments.
– Chris Bixby, Vice President of Growth at Sezzle
Partner Where You Need To
The compliance space is really important. I have an antidote that says there are a lot of fintechs that get the "tech" but not the "fin," so if you're not good at it, find the experts who are good at it.
There are so many opportunities to partner with companies like PerformLine to augment where you don't have the expertise-it is vitally important. So, know what you're good at, know what you're not, and find the right partner to help you do that.
– Mylee Vigness, Head of Innovation and Growth at Snap Finance
PerformLine: Your Partner in Compliance
Empower your organization with PerformLine to find and mitigate compliance risk across your marketing channels, including merchant partners. See how PerformLine is helping BNPL companies like yours thrive, by making marketing compliance scalable, actionable, and efficient.
