The bill payment platform is a light at the end of the JobKeeper tunnel for many Australians looking to manage stress and anxiety over looming payment deadlines.
Deferit, a popular payment platform exclusively focused on helping people pay their bills on time, has just hit over 600k bills paid for its customers since its launch in 2018.
200k were processed in the last five months as the platform saw a spike in demand which coincided with news of Job Keeper ending last month.
Benefits accrued from the Deferit platform
The platform, which doesn’t fund discretionary purchases, but helps users manage household bills such as telecommunications, energy and car registrations, allows consumers and businesses to simply upload a bill and Deferit pays it off immediately.
Users then pay it back in four equal installments for a fixed monthly fee of $5.99 (like a Netflix subscription) with no interest or late fees charged at any stage.
In the last 12 months, Deferit has seen an increased demand for the service with 150% growth.
With JobKeeper ending, Deferit anticipates demand will continue to soar in the next few months as many Australians are forced to seek alternative solutions for managing tighter budgets and upcoming bill payments.
Deferit CEO Jonty Hirsowitz said the platform has over 250,000 users in Australia after experiencing a surge in sign ups since the pandemic.
“What we’ve seen is that more Australians are turning to Deferit as an avenue of support as they are forced to become more strategic about the way they manage their bill payments over each pay period.” says Hirsowitz
“With JobKeeper coming to an end, we expect to see even more people make the proactive decision to sign up and take control of their finances in a way that gives them greater flexibility and peace of mind that they aren’t at risk of getting caught out by late fees.”
What is Deferit’s users’ experience on the platform?
One frequent user of Deferit is Jackie who is the business owner of a bridal store in Melbourne’s Croydon. After COVID lock downs created chaos for the bridal industry, Jackie was forced to find a creative way to stay on top of her bills with cash flow at an all time low.
Since signing up with Deferit in October 2020, Jackie has become a loyal user, regularly using the platform to pay off more than six bills a month. She uses it for utility payments, rates, phone bills, and even supplier bills for her bridal business.
Jackie said she uses the platform as the ultimate budgeting tool when money comes through, she pays her bills, and when she’s low on cash, she has the opportunity to easily defer the bill for a period of time.
“For me, it is so flexible and convenient. I find it gives me a real peace of mind because I know I’m never going to be caught out with a late fee.”
“I login to the app daily to check where my finances are at and make sure that I’m always on top of what payments are coming up. With COVID, I had so much stress about money coming in, but Deferit took that stress away and gave me some breathing space,” she said.
“I avoid the stress of calling up for multiple bill extensions, I can mark things as paid with Deferit and manage my budget proactively. It’s a budgeting tool for me, so in addition to bills due now, I also use it to get a head start on bills due later down the track,” she added.
Deferit is the only pure play in the AU$211bn Pay Later vertical of everyday bills. It has paid over 600,000 telco, energy and car registration bills.
The Bill Now Pay Later vertical is similar to the Buy Now Pay Later vertical in the deferred payment model and the shift of millennials to debit over credit.
Buy Now Pay Later is a disruption of Lay By and Credit Cards at the POS – removing friction at the checkout for consumers and retailers.
Bill Now Pay Later is a disruption of Bill Extensions and Credit Cards at the bill due date as it removes friction for both the consumer and the biller.
