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- Rent.com.au (RNT) shares have opened lower this morning after the company released the latest user data for its recently launched RentPay app
- The mobile fintech app has been downloaded 2400 times, but only 100 users have become paying customers
- Rent.com.au CEO Greg Bader says this is in line with expectations but the company is working to streamline the customer onboarding process
- The company will also be ramping up marketing for the app, with New York-based Hayley Parker appointed general manager in charge of marketing
- Shares in Rent.com.au are down 3.23 per cent and trading at 15 cents each at 10:30 am AEST
ASX-listed Rent.com.au (RNT) has slipped in early trade today after releasing the latest user stats for its RentPay fintech app.
The app, which is designed to streamline the rent-paying process, has officially been downloaded 2400 times — largely in line with company expectations for this phase of its launch. However fewer than half of these downloads have translated into paying customers.
Rent.com.au said the initial optimisation phase for the app was coming to an end and the company now planned to bolster its marketing efforts for Rentpay.
CEO Greg Bader said the company’s strategy for RentPay had been to start with a “soft launch” phase, where it could measure the app’s performance under real market conditions. From here, the company could improve and optimise the app before committing some major funds to market the product.
This is the same strategy the company took when launching its Renter Resume service for simplified rental applications and property searching.
“Today we have over one million Renter Resumes and by following a similar path with RentPay, we have confidence in our ability to achieve our target of 200,000 paying RentPay customers by 30 June 2023,” Mr Bader said.
He said to help lead the expanded marketing efforts, RNT had signed New York-based brand strategy director Hayley Parker as its general manager in charge of marketing.
“Hayley’s previous experience in launching JP Morgan Chase’s investing app in the US, as well driving brand strategy for a range of financial and consumer brands both in the US and Australia such as J.P. Morgan, eToro, National Australia Bank, Kmart and Macy’s make her a great fit for us at this stage of our growth,” Mr Bader said.
RentPay by the numbers
Of RentPay’s 2400 app downloads, 2200 customers have registered to the payment service.
These registrations have translated to 1300 activating customers, but only 100 people have actually become paying customers for the app.
Mr Bader said the company has had some trouble getting customers to move beyond activation through to fully onboarded because of the complexity of payment service regulatory compliance.
“RentPay is a complex fintech product which means we are required to conduct a variety of verifications (fraud and anti-money laundering, etc.) during activation to ensure compliance and customer security and this is an area where customers are having difficulty,” he said.
The Rent.com.au chief said the company is working to streamline this process, and these improvements should be operational within weeks. The company expects will lead to a “significant lift” in paying customers over the next two months.
Nevertheless, RNT said the new app is unlikely to have any major impact on 2021 financial year revenue given the early stages of the product’s launch, but RentPay’s performance is still in line with company targets.
Shares in Rent.com.au were down 3.23 per cent and trading at 15 cents each at 12:20 am AEST.
