Checkout Finance Acquires Underserved Customers

Merchant finance works as acquisition because the loan offer appears at the exact moment a shopper is deciding whether to buy, so Salmon is paying for a funded loan, not just a click. In practice, the merchant gets higher checkout conversion, the customer gets smaller monthly payments, and Salmon gets an underwritten borrower it can later move into revolving credit, deposits, and app usage without paying consumer internet ad rates for every lead.

• This model is especially useful in underserved markets because many customers are hard to reach and expensive to qualify through app install ads alone. A merchant counter or checkout flow pre-screens intent, since the customer is already trying to buy a real item and finance a known basket size.
  1 sacra 4 sacra
• Comparable models show why merchants tolerate the economics. Klarna won retailers by lifting conversion at checkout, and Neo Financial used merchant funded rewards partnerships as a cheaper path into consumer banking than competing head on for generic bank app downloads.
  2 sacra 3 sacra
• The closest emerging market parallel is CloudWalk, which used merchant payments and lending to reach millions of micro merchants, then layered on accounts and credit. That playbook turns distribution from a marketing expense into part of the product, because every loan or payment interaction creates the next cross sell opportunity.
  4 sacra

The next step is for merchant finance to become Salmon's on ramp into a full bank relationship. As deposit funding grows and more borrowers repeat across merchants and in app credit products, acquisition cost should fall further and each approved shopper should become more valuable over time.