South Central Ventures is adding another member to its portfolio – Leanpay, a consumer financing Fintech start-up that helps people pay for consumer goods on credit / in installments. Leanpay is focused on reinventing Point-of-Sale financing by providing instant and easy installment plans in all sales channels.
The Leanpay team is based in Serbia and Slovenia, while their HQ is in London, which, for now, is the administrative center. The team consists of experienced professionals from retail, banking and financial software development. Co-founders Misa Zivic and Dushan Neshovski, both lifelong entrepreneurs, started to build the idea during their MBA studies on University of Oxford. The core team was later strengthened by experienced C-level banking executives, Janko Medja and Tilen Zugwitz. Leanpay’s core development team has more than 10 years of experience in
building transaction-based products and is led by Nikola Belosevic, who serves as CTO, and Jovan Milicevic, who serves as CPO.
“Leanpay’s multidisciplinary team managed to create value to both customers and merchants. Our customers rated us 4.8 (on the scale 1 to 5), and in 8 months on the market, we have managed to serve over 1.000 clients, having 77,5% CAGR. Leanpay has partnered so far with 45 merchants in Slovenia, while our team is adding 3-4 new merchants each month. We see that our approach could have a huge opportunity in the EU market, by joining EU single trading area and EU fragmented financial market in order to bring consistent and coherent experience in POS
financing across EU. Partnership with South Central Ventures will help us to strengthen our position in Slovenia and prepare the infrastructure to grow in the EU,” said Misa Zivic, Leanpay’s CEO.
The Global Point-of-Sale Financing is poised to have significant growth in the following years. Technology and abundant data indicate that merchants and financial institutions can now offer loans at the moment of purchase, either online or in stores. At the same time, traditional credit cards are becoming less popular among younger consumers which created a fresh momentum on the market. FinTechs are front-runners in the POS lending trend. It is currently regarded as the hottest field in Fintech with more than USD 500m of investment in the last 6 months. As anticipated, the US accounts for an overwhelming majority of said investments as their POSF is estimated to US 391bn (filene.org). Europe is a distant second with their POSF projected to EUR 31bn in 2018, with the expected growth rate of 6,6% (eurofinas.org).
Leanpay’s solution provides advantages for both consumers and merchants. For consumers, it’s easy to see the appeal of Leanpay POS financing. It’s instantaneous and digital and can offer greater transparency on the total cost of the purchase, and it provides more flexibility when it comes to paying for goods and services. For merchants, the key selling proposition is getting more customers and higher sales. Leanpay’s solution increases conversion rates by offering consumers intuitive, seamless and error-free loan processes and delivers high approval rates for loan applicants. Offering Leanpay POS financing increases customers’ buying power, as it gives them more time to pay
for their purchases, which in turn allows them to choose items of greater value. Leanpay customers said that they spent on average more than 7,5% because of the possibility to borrow at the checkout.
Source: Helen Svilan
Photo: LeanPay