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On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. In the 24 hours following that, Earlytrade witnessed $51.4 million of early payment requests from Australian small and medium-sized businesses. This was a 650% increase in Earlytrade’s average daily trading volumes.
The week following March 11, 2020, the company saw over a quarter of a billion of early payment requests made on the Earlytrade marketplace.
“Forget toilet paper, everybody just wants to be paid, ” Guy Saxelby, CEO of Earlytrade said.
Having seen the excessive demand for ethical working capital solutions in the market, Earlytrade has responded to COVID-19 with the launch of new products in addition to its existing core product, the early payment marketplace. These products are mainly designed to support small businesses as well as stimulate the economy and help boost the entire supply chain.
“We have ambitious plans for 2020. Although it is impossible to predict the ultimate cost of the pandemic, we are viewing COVID-19 as an opportunity to innovate and disrupt traditional payment practices around the world using technology,” says Piers Symons, CTO and Co-Founder of Earlytrade.
Earlytrade’s response aims to:
- Offer early payment to small businesses for free
There is a huge social need for early payments to small businesses to help them survive as well as sustain them. Making early payments free will be hugely beneficial for this segment of businesses.
To scale this up, Earlytrade is in conversation with policymakers and government agencies to help release billions of dollars in cash flow into the Australian economy and help support smaller businesses by paying them first.
- Support Small/Local/Indigenous businesses
The first draft recommendation on the ASBFEO review of Supply Chain Finance last month, was the difficulty in defining and identifying small/local and indigenous businesses. As a technology company, Earlytrade aims to launch “Earlytrade Verify” that will disrupt the payment arrangements for these businesses in Australia in the coming few weeks.
About Earlytrade
Earlytrade is Australia’s largest marketplace for early payment. The company was founded by Guy Saxelby and Piers Symons in 2016. It delivers an ethical and robust solution to business payments, helping over 37,000 suppliers across Australia and New Zealand get paid sooner.
