Visa Installments expands to Australia
Visa Inc (NYSE:V) today announced the expansion of Visa Installments in Australia in partnership with ANZ, one of the country’s largest financial institutions, and merchant payment provider Quest. The Visa solution lets Australian shoppers access popular “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) financing via their existing ANZ credit cards, during checkout and without any extra steps.
Visa’s fintech programs have been helping to enable the growth of installments globally since as early as 2017. With the Visa Installments Solution, Visa is now bringing the flexibility of BNPL financing that Australians love to the cards already in eligible consumers’ wallets and phones – for use during in-store and online checkout.
The Visa Installments Solution provides the underlying technology for issuers and acquirers in the Visa network to offer BNPL functionality to their customers. This means financial institutions can add BNPL as a feature for credit cardholders, on their already approved credit lines, in whatever terms are right for their customers. And likewise, acquirers on the network can activate the ability to accept installments for any of their retailers that accept Visa.
First launched as a pilot in 2019, the solution has expanded to the U.S., Canada, Malaysia, Russia—and now, Australia.
When qualified shoppers use their ANZ Visa credit cards at the in-store terminal or while shopping online at participating merchants, they’ll be able to select a repayment term displayed on the screen during the purchase process. Quest, a leading provider of merchant payment technology, is working with Visa to enable businesses to accept Visa Installments quickly and seamlessly – merchants with Quest-integrated point-of-sale (POS) software will not need to make any software changes to enable the solution.
With the Visa Installments Solution, participating lenders can offer a more flexible range of repayment plans – from three months to 24 months, with no interest in some cases– and customers can view their installment purchases, balances and repayment information directly in their existing banking apps.
“There is overwhelming demand in Australia for BNPL financing through consumers’ existing, trusted financial institution,” said Julian Potter, Visa’s Group Country Manager for Australia, New Zealand, and South Pacific.
“We’re proud to work with our long-standing partner, ANZ, on the first roll-out of Visa Installments that has been built from the ground up – at the network level – to be deployed in-store and across ecommerce channels without the need for consumers or businesses to do anything new. Now Australians’ credit cards can buy now, pay later, too.”