Splitit Partners with Mastercard to Expand Buy Now, Pay Later

Need to Know

• The partnership will bring Splitit’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) tech to Mastercard’s suite of products, vastly expanding the fintech’s reach.
• Installment solutions will be available as secure consumer experiences both in-store and online.
• Splitit’s merchant sales volume showed a record year-over-year growth spike of 321% in May 2020.
• More and more brands are embracing buy now, pay later—Fender, Sephora, H&M, and others have integrated solutions into their payment options.
• Splitit also partnered with Visa in March 2020.

Analysis

As the buy now, pay later format surges in popularity with online and bricks-and-mortar vendors, leading BNPL tech provider Splitit has signed a deal with Mastercard, with each company planning to leverage the other’s products and technologies to offer more flexible payment options to consumers.

Splitit, which has emerged as a leader in the BNPL tech field, will use Mastercard’s network of partners to expand its installment options for merchants and consumers.

“We are very excited to be partnering with Mastercard who share our strong commitment to accelerating the adoption of instalment payments globally,” Brad Paterson, CEO of Splitit, said in a statement announcing the partnership. “This is a fantastic way to broaden the distribution of our solution, leveraging Mastercard’s incredible global reach, and build out a range of instalment services. It’s a major plank in our strategy to grow through strategic partnerships to make Splitit a household name.”

Mastercard and Splitit will also work together to build new products. and the partnership will also enable Mastercard to explore new collaborations with its existing roster of installment solution providers.

Earlier this year, Splitit partnered in a similar way with Visa; the company reported skyrocketing growth this year, with a 321% spike in sales volume year-over-year compared to May 2019.

Buy now, pay later has emerged in recent months as an increasingly popular choice among merchants and consumers — and as a result, a large number of established consumer brands have adopted the technology. In May, leading musical instrument manufacturer Fender announced it would be partnering with BNPL tech provider Klarna to offer the option to consumers; H&M and online fashion retailer Modcloth also recently partnered with Klarna.

Apple also offers an installment-based payment system for users of its Apple Card, when they purchase products from the brand, and online banking platform Curve launched a similar functionality in June, in an attempt to compete with existing BNPL platforms such as Klarna and Splitit.