The golden era for BNPL shares is over for now

The stellar rise on buy-now-pay-later fintechs on the ASX appears to have halted, with market leaders such as Afterpay falling briefly below $100 a share in trading today amid a three-month low for BNPL stocks.

Afterpay (ASX: APT) ended the day up slightly at $101.50, but remains a long way off its mid-February high of $160.

Meanwhile even news of a guaranteed capital raise was not enough to stop prices falling with Openpay (ASX:OPY) down 1.66% on Wednesday to $2.37 after announcing a $67.5 million funding package. Just six weeks ago the shares sat at $3.35.

The Melbourne fintech is raising $37.5 million via an institutional placement from new and existing, institutional and high net worth investors; a new $25 million corporate debt facility; and $5 million in a non-underwritten share purchase plan to existing eligible shareholders.

News of the raise came in the same week OpenPay CEO Michael Eidel announced a collaboration agreement for the platform integration and merchant acquisition with global payments provider, Worldpay from FIS, with an immediate focus on the US.

“The funding package announced today will provide valuable funding for the integration and launch of the
agreement with Worldpay from FIS, as well as other recent wins, and support the close of other agreements in our
deal funnel across Australian, UK, and US markets,” Eidel said.

Zip also had news today, signing a deal with JB Hi-Fi to offer is BNPL payment option at the electronics retailer, as well as The Good Guys.

Zip (ASX: Z1P) shares ended the day up 3 cents at $7.38, and while up for the year, still sit well below the mid-February high of $14.53.

Sezzle (ASX: SZL) was one of the few to buck the trend today, climbing 4.69% to close at $7.36.

Humm (ASX:Hum) the former Flexigroup, fell 1% to $0.96 cents to close out the first quarter of 2021.