Zip Co put a lot of its effort in the December half into improving the acceptance of its buy now pay later services at the point of sale and online.

Zip became a principal issuer with Visa, which enables Zip Pay users to shop with any merchant that accepts Visa.

In August it launched Zip Business, partnering with eBay to offer access to working capital through the eBay Marketplace, and with Facebook to allow businesses to pay for advertising on the platform using Zip.

Its US business Quadpay launched a “Chrome extension” that allows consumers to pay in instalments on any website.

According to the company’s December 2020 half financial report, Zip’s underlying transaction volume was $2.3 billion – an increase of 141 per cent over the previous corresponding period. Revenue rose 131 per cent to $159.8 million.

The loss for the half was $453.7 million, which included a $306 million adjustment relating to Zip’s acquisition of QuadPay in the United States and several other non-recurring items.

On an EBTDA basis, the company lost $14.8 million. Cash flow from operations was positive, rising from $4.4 million in the December half 2019 to $13.9 million in the latest half.

The bad and doubtful debt expense was $29.5 million – up from $23.2 million in the previous corresponding period.

Customer numbers increased from 1.8 million in December 2019 to 5.7 million at the end of the latest half and transaction numbers increased from 4.6 million to 16 million over the latest half.

These big increases can be accounted for, in large part, by the inclusion of QuadPay for the first time. Zip moved to full ownership last August.

Zip said the Quadpay acquisition improved its capital efficiency; it takes three months to turn over its receivables, compared with eight months at the beginning of 2020.