Rebranded Citizens Pay Expands POS Merchant Services

Providence, Rhode Island-based Citizens Financial Group is advancing the reach of its national point-of-sale (POS) offering for merchants, renaming it Citizens Pay, the company announced Monday (Jan. 11).

“Our platform has demonstrated the ability to drive impressive sales growth with a best-in-class customer experience,” Andrew Rostami, president of Citizens Pay, said in a press release. “Citizens Pay helps merchants boost sales and increase consumer loyalty by enabling their customers to make repeat purchases and upgrades in a financially responsible way.”

Citizens Pay aims to enable businesses to extend affordable payment options to shoppers with a virtual line of credit with low monthly payments. Additional purchases can be financed without another credit application. Merchants can integrate and launch the scalable solution in a few days, according to the release.

The solution also gives manufacturers the ability to embed financing and extend product-as-a-service offerings. This capability was first introduced in a collaboration between Citizens and Xbox All Access at retailers like Target, Best Buy and others. Citizens is looking to expand current partnerships with consumer electronics firms and reach deeper into retail sectors.

The firm already partners with retailers in health and fitness, home improvement and educational products and services.

“The point-of-sale lending space is a high-growth area and attracts customers that exhibit strong credit performance,” added Rostami. “We have invested consistently over time to deliver a state-of-the-art payment model and look forward to further accelerating its adoption with Citizens Pay.”

Citizens has extended more than $6.4 billion in unsecured POS financing and has served in excess of 5 million accounts. Citizens Financial is among the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $179.2 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2020.

Eric Schuppenhauer, president of consumer lending and national banking at Citizens Financial Group, said in a PYMNTS interview that although the pandemic propelled the widespread use of digital-first banking, banks need an omnichannel approach to consistent messaging.