Tabby Expands BNPL Offering With $350 Million Debt Facility

Tabby says new financing will let it expand its buy now, pay later (BNPL) service.

The Dubai-based FinTech announced Wednesday (May 31) it had closed a new funding round resulting in upsizing its debt facility to $350 million, a more than two-fold increase since the last time it announced a debt raising.

“The upsizing of Tabby’s credit facility reflects the remarkable growth the company is experiencing with over 4 million active customers who are taking control of their finances with more flexibility,” the company said in a news release.

Tabby said the financing will support its BNPL business and allow it to serve more retailers and consumers. This latest funding follows the company’s $58 million Series C in January.

PYMNTS spoke with Tabby Co-founder and CEO Hosam Arab in 2021 about how demand for BNPL in the Middle East had been driven by the expansion of eCommerce in the region, as well as the obstacles pretended by other methods of payment.

Those methods, he said, “lacked flexibility [and] they were high on friction, so most customers essentially just chose to pay for the eCommerce purchases in cash, which for an online retailer presented a lot of complexity and obstacles to growth.”

Tabby’s news comes amid a series of regulatory changes to the BNPL industry, including one in Australia that — as noted here last week — could eventually be embraced worldwide.

Speaking at the Responsible Lending and Borrowing Summit in Sydney on May 22, Australia’s Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said that “the government will change the law, so that buy now, pay later products are regulated as credit products.”

Jones pointed to several issues reported to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) that add up to “unacceptable levels of unaffordable lending occurring, largely concentrated amongst low-income borrowers,” Jones said, “BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit.”

“This is the latest and most definitive set of measures yet proposed among nations where BNPL is under increasing regulatory scrutiny, and it’s unlikely to be the last,” PYMNTS wrote.

For example, the U.K. is drafting legislation granting its Financial Conduct Authority new enforcement powers to target what it deems irresponsible or misleading BNPL marketing and issuance, chiefly among FinTechs and merchants.

And in the U.S., the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a study of BNPL use in March.

“While many BNPL borrowers who we observed used the product without any noticeable indications of financial stress,” the study found. “They are more likely to also have traditional credit products like credit and retail cards, personal loans and student loans…”