sydneybuynowpaylater rivals zip co ltd and sezzle inc have scrapped the planned merger that they had hoped would create the scale to better compete in the crowded installment payments industry the asxlisted firms on tuesday issued separate statements saying that they had mutually agreed to halt the merger without immediately saying why both said the decision was in the best interests of shareholders zip will pay sezzle us11 million to cover legal accounting and other transactionrelated costs zip and sezzle had announced their combination in february zip chief executive larry diamond said at the time that the allscrip deal would accelerate his companys path to profitability by creating a consumer base necessary to attract the largest merchants zip on tuesday said that it continued to expect group profitability during its 2024 fiscal year we believe that mutually terminating the merger agreement with sezzle at this time is in the best interests of zip and its shareholders and will allow zip to focus on its strategy and core business in the current environment zip chair diane smithgander said with inflation and rising interestrates denting consumer sentiment buynowpaylater valuations have been badly hit during the recent decline in global tech stocks zips shares are about 75 down since the merger announcement and have lost more than 95 of their value since february 2021 the failure of the merger comes less than four weeks after latitude group holdings ltd scrapped its acquisition of australian rival humm group ltds consumer finance operations which includes buynowpaylater latitude cited financialmarket turmoil