Copyright farmersweekly
Reading Time: 2 minutes Rural entrepreneur Ross Hyland has launched a financial services platform called GrowPay for farmers and agribusiness companies. In collaboration with Mastercard, GrowPay offers a range of lending, deposit and marketplace services that Hyland said will enable clients to tailor their financial needs with their seasonal cashflows. Previously Hyland was a founding shareholder of Seales Winslow and a director of several agribusiness ventures. GrowPay has launched with a branded Mastercard debit card, providing access to over 150 million merchants worldwide and security and fraud prevention tools. Hyland said that the ability to shape a farm’s financial systems to better align with its cashflow places power in the hands of farmers, allowing for efficiencies to be found across the entire farm, whether it’s instant payments or working capital tailored to on-farm financial cycles. GrowPay is not a non-bank deposit taker and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand capital adequacy requirements must be met by the financial institutions providing the loans. GrowPay acts as a broker or referrer of other financial institutions’ products, which then set the limits for each customer. Loan fees have to be stated up front, and the interest rates agreed upon between the parties before signing. The Mastercard country manager for New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Ruth Riviere, said the introduction of GrowPay technology will enable NZ farmers to maintain their standing as the most efficient farmers in the world, while participating in an increasingly digital economy. As part of GrowPay’s offering, farmers will be able to sell agricultural products before they even leave the farm and access bulk purchasing benefits from GrowPay suppliers, maintained through a streamlined payments system. GrowPay’s lending products include livestock trading, capital livestock, technology and asset finance loans, with terms and interest rates developed with the lifecycle of farms in mind. A range of deposit products will be available for cash surpluses, often experienced following harvest, packhouse receipts or killing sheets, allowing surpluses to be put to work. According to its website, GrowPay will initially refer applicants to Heartland Bank for loans and to Xceda Finance for deposits.
