Stripe, Afterpay Join Forces To Expand BNPL To More Merchants

Afterpay, which offers a buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, and Stripe, which works on payments infrastructure for eCommerce, are teaming up. The plan is to spread Afterpay services to Stripe merchants via an “easy and seamless integration,” according to a press release.

The companies said that “businesses on Stripe can start accepting Afterpay in minutes — there’s no application, onboarding or underwriting process to get started.” The partnership will give shoppers the option to spread out their payments over four installments, without having to take out a traditional loan or pay any upfront fees or interest.

Noah Pepper, Stripe’s business lead for APAC, said the goal is to “make it easy and fast for online businesses to offer their customers buy now, pay later. We’ve seen strong demand from users around the world for flexible payment options, and this partnership gives businesses on Stripe an effective tool for capturing more sales and reaching new customers.”

The release said the two companies are also making BNPL available to leading eCommerce platforms, with Squarespace the partners’ first such customer. The platform will offer Afterpay to its customers. “By offering Afterpay, Squarespace enables merchants to build a fully integrated checkout experience with ease, while maintaining the look and feel of their brand,” the release stated.

“Afterpay has been a top requested feature from our customers,” said Paul Gubbay, chief product officer at Squarespace. “Through this partnership, we’re glad to be able to offer our merchants even more flexibility in how they transact with their customers and increase topline sales without having to sacrifice the design elements that are unique to their brand.”

Under the partnership, Stripe merchants in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand can now integrate Afterpay. According to the release, the service will soon be available to merchants in Canada.

The BNPL offering continues to gain new customers. For example, a recent PYMNTS research project showed that 17 percent of consumers who recently used BNPL said they used it for an electronics purchase, while 10 percent used it for home furnishings.