Sezzle, Target Sign 3-Year Contract For Retailer’s Use Of BNPL Product

FinTech Sezzle has landed a three-year deal to provide its interest-free installment product to Target customers, Sezzle announced in a press release Wednesday (June 2).

“Under the agreement, Sezzle’s product will be used in-store and across Target’s digital platforms, providing guests access to interest-free payment plans for purchases made at Target,” the release stated.

The company is in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space.

Sezzle said in the release that its platform “increases the purchasing power for millions of active consumers by offering interest-free installment plans at online stores and select in-store locations. This increase in purchasing power for consumers leads to increased sales and basket sizes for the more than 34,000 active merchants that offer Sezzle.”

According to the release, applying for the program produces an “instant” answer, and the process doesn’t affect credit scores unless customers opt into a credit-building feature called Sezzle Up.

Sezzle announced the proof of concept (POC) program that led to Wednesday’s announcement regarding Target in September.

“The POC will include limited tests with a small portion of Target.com guests in two product categories to evaluate the efficacy of the Sezzle platform for Target’s retail operations,” Sezzle’s announcement of nine months ago stated.

At that time, Sezzle stated it had 1.6 million “active consumers” and was doing business with “17,600 active merchants that offer Sezzle in the U.S. and Canada.” The latest announcement stated Sezzle has “millions” of consumers and 34,000 “active merchant” clients.

Sezzle Chief Technology Officer Killian Brackey told PYMNTS last month that one advantage of Sezzle is that it can help identify customers who are better credit risks than their FICO scores might suggest.

“We’re finding FICO credit vision scores don’t really capture the full picture of credit worthiness for the shorter term, smaller limit installment product,” he said. “There could be a number of reasons why the score is lower today for a customer — it could be that they just started paying down their student loans, or they’re not getting credit for things like paying their phone bills or other things that people are doing. We take the approach that customers are low-risk and responsible and … see paying with zero interest is a smarter way to purchase and budget responsibly.”

Sezzle announced in late April that it planned to go public, but timing and other details had yet to be finalized.

In its registration statement for that offering, Sezzle stated it had operations in the U.S. and Canada and “exploratory operations in India.”