Netherlands-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Billink has raised €29.5m from the German Varengold Bank, and is ready to compete with Germany’s Riverty.
The payment solution will use the funding to expand its offering to the top-50 largest Benelux web shops, enter the German market, and further fuel its ambitions to make buying online fairer, for both consumers and online shops.
Founded in 2011, the payment solution company Billink enables consumers to only pay after they have received their purchases. The fintech has 3 million users, and over 3,000 online shops offer its payment service.
Last year, research from Mollie revealed that BNPL increased in popularity in the UK amid economic uncertainty, a trend that is also relevant across Europe.
Frank Waagmeester, CEO of Billink, commented: “We differentiate ourselves by being a ‘local hero’, We have been active in the payment market in the Benelux for over a decade and understand the challenges of our web shop owners.
“We see this reflected in, among other things, a high customer retention and satisfaction score and a 4.7 Trustpilot rating, the highest in the market. With this great foundation, we are ready to take the next step.”
A step towards its overall ambition of becoming the most reliable online payment method. The partnership with German Varengold Bank was supervised by Philip Niemeyer, Executive Director at A-DCM, which will help it expand into the German market and compete with Sweden’s Klarna and Germany’s Riverty, formerly AfterPay.
Billink has also announced that it is working on ‘Billink Check-out 2.0’, with Waagmeester concludinged: “We are now working on Billink Check-out 2.0, which makes the customer experience even more personal and helps web shop owners further optimise conversion.
“For this we are not only talking to the largest web shops in the Benelux about their challenges and needs, we are also developing our own AI application.”
