Afterpay (ASX: APT) co-founder and Australia’s youngest self-made billionaire – Nick Molnar – has seen his net worth cross $2 billion in value as the Afterpay share price surged to an all-time high this week. Climbing above $100 for the first time yesterday morning and trading at $104 before midday. The collective net worth of both Nick Molnar and fellow co-founder/CEO Anthony Eisen comfortably exceeds $4 billion in total.
The market reaction occurred after the buy-now-pay-later giant announced a strategic partnership with Westpac (ASX: WBC). To summarise, the bank has authorised Afterpay to offer both transaction and savings accounts via the former’s new banking-as-a-service platform powered by technology from 10X – enabling the latter to offer its 3.3 million domestic customer base deposits without having to go through the lengthy and expensive ordeal of securing a banking licence. Certainly not a bad move considering Afterpay’s popularity with millennials; while Westpac has been struggling to attract younger customers.
“We believe Australians deserve greater support and insight to help manage their money,” says Eisen.
“Together with the power of our retail platform, the latest banking technology from 10X, and the support of Westpac – we will begin by offering cash flow management in a simple way.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Australia’s oldest bank dipped a toe into the buy-now-pay-later game. In 2017, Westpac invested a total of $40 million into Afterpay rival – Zip (ASX: Z1P) – in exchange for a 10.7% stake. Considering the Zip market cap has steadily increased to an impressive $3.66 billion bringing Westpac’s revised cut to around $391,620,000 in value today – I’d say they’ve all done very well for themselves.
At the time of publishing, the Afterpay share price is trading at $100.72 with a market cap of $28.53 billion. What a year for APT, eh?
