Santander is today announcing the launch of Zinia, a new buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform. The technology behind Zinia has been operating in Germany for the past year where it has already acquired more than two million customers, making Santander one of the leading players in BNPL in Europe by customer volumes.

The bank now plans to roll out the service across its other markets under the Zinia brand, starting first in the Netherlands, leveraging Santander’s leading position in Consumer finance, where it already supports 19 million customers through 63,000 affiliated merchants.

Zinia’s BNPL service simplifies shopping by offering customers the opportunity to pay in interest-free instalments in a matter of seconds, either online or through physical points of sale. Zinia users will also benefit from other services in their Zinia app, including exclusive offers and financing alternatives.

For partner merchants, Zinia allows them to offer customers a fast and secure payment option, improving the customer experience, increasing sales and repeat business as a result.

According to the CEO of Openbank and Santander Consumer Finance, Ezequiel Szafir,

“Today we are launching a new platform that offers consumers a convenient and flexible payment option with the security and trust provided by a large financial group like Santander. We are delighted with Zinia’s early expansion and aim to become a leader in the buy now, pay later market”.

Zinia uses artificial intelligence-based credit assessment technology developed by Openbank (Santander’s leading digital bank which already serves 1.7 million customers across five countries in Europe and the Americas) to make real-time credit decisions with the standards expected from a regulated bank. That, combined with Santander Consumer Finance’s scale (a consumer credit leader with operations in 18 countries, €120 billion in assets and over 19 million customers worldwide), and long standing relationships with merchants makes Zinia a unique, state-of-the-art platform.

Zinia is the first project developed by Santander’s Digital Consumer Bank (DCB), which combines Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) and Openbank. SCF is the leading consumer finance bank with a presence in 16 European countries, USA and Canada offering products and services to more than 19 million customers and 130,000 points of sale.

Openbank is Santander’s digital bank with a full catalogue of financial products and its own state-of-the-art digital platform. SCF’s scale and Openbank’s digital capabilities make DCB one of the largest digital consumer finance banks in the world.