Zip Co: Larry Diamond builds a disruptive Buy Now Pay Later fintech empire

Part 1 -When Larry Diamond came up with his idea for a new payment method he wanted with a passion to disrupt existing payment systems, particularly credit cards, that had a stranglehold on the online space, but were clunky and un-user friendly in his view. Pitching his idea to would-be investors, they sort of metaphorically patted him on the head and shooed him away, saying, nice idea Larry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about!  Rather than drop his idea for a Buy Now Pay Later digital product, he persevered and found a perfect partner, consumer credit expert Peter Gray, to help realise his vision. That vision was providing small amounts of credit to consumers involving “fees” but would do away with “interest charges” completely. ZipMoney, later becoming Zip Co, was born in 2013 over a number of beers in their local pub!

The co-founders landed on a product that gelled with younger consumers, in a big way as it’s turning out, as a kind of cross between a debit card and a credit card. 8 years later, overcoming several mammoth hurdles along the way which you’ll hear about, Zip now boasts 7 million customers worldwide, including 2.5 million Australian customers using their most popular product Zip Pay, at everywhere from Bunnings and Woolies to online e-tailers Kogan and Catch.

While another Aussie startup Afterpay began later but has grown much bigger, and there’s also strong competition promised from US giant PayPal and CBA’s part-owned Klarna in the BNPL space, Larry Diamond says bring on competition! Founder Larry Diamond now owns just 10% of Zip, making him very wealthy already. But, he tells me, more important are his expanding global growth plans for Zip, including greater penetration into the lucrative US.

Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my interview with Zip co-founder and CEO Larry Diamond.

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