Australian buy now pay later (BNPL) firm Afterpay believes that local merchants can slash payment costs by utilizing cryptocurrencies. In a submission to the Senate inquiry into “Australia as a Technology and Financial Center”, Afterpay stated that the use of blockchain-based transactions would cut the fees associated with traditional payment methods including card issuer, network operator and banking fees: Under the crypto model, the customer would front the cost of validating the payment on the blockchain. This could either be relatively cheap or costly depending on which cryptocurrency and blockchain the transaction is conducted with, or how congested a network is at any given time.