Jack Mallers has just announced a partnership with NCR, one of the largest POS providers to integrate lightning payments.

This eliminates merchant fees, potentially rendering Smartpay's business obsolete. I don't know when this innovation will be open up to Australia, but shareholders need to keep a close watch on this development.

Smartpay is likely to benefit from the re-opening of retail in Australia, and should have strong results for Q2 2022. The same thing occurred overseas, with peers Square Inc and Lightspeed reporting strong GPV growth in the June quarter of 2021 as their economies re-opened. However, both companies have hit headwinds in the September quarter, as GPV growth normalises, and headwinds begin to return, noting the following challenges the industry faces:

• Withdrawal of fiscal stimulus from governments, creating a drag on the economic recovery.
• Inflation in commoditises, such a oil, reduces discretionary spending.
• Boomer generation retirement generating a headwind as boomers spending reduces.
• Emergence of DeFi, although not material presently, will disrupt this sector, as it presently is doing to remittances.

Smartpay may return to pre-pandemic growth rates, but I think that is the most optimistic outcome one should be modelling.