Affirm Forms BNPL Pact With J.P. Morgan Payments

Affirm is expanding its pay-later offering via a new agreement with J.P. Morgan Payments.

With this partnership, announced Tuesday (March 25), Affirm’s solutions become available to merchants on the J.P. Morgan Payments network in the U.S., letting them offer the company’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans at checkout.

According to the companies’ announcement, the collaboration is happening amid increased adoption of Affirm’s services, with its active customer numbers reaching a record 21 million, up 23% year over year.

“The demand for diverse payment options, flexibility, and seamless transactions from both merchants and their customers is at an all-time high,” said Michael Lozanoff, global head of merchant services at J.P. Morgan Payments.

“By incorporating Affirm as a payment method into our Commerce Platform, we are empowering businesses to deliver the services they need and the experiences that customers increasingly expect as part of their retail journey,” he added.

The partnership comes nearly a week after Affirm announced it would begin furnishing information about all of its payment plans to Experian starting April 1.

“Having all loans reflected in a consumer’s financial profile will help protect and empower borrowers,” Libor Michalek, Affirm president, said in a Wednesday (March 19) news release.

”The buy now, pay later industry must evolve from simply providing flexible payment options to helping consumers build their credit histories and better manage their finances, and we are pleased to be taking this step with Experian,” Michalek said.

The company said this expanded credit reporting will help consumers build their credit histories, while letting consumers and lenders make more informed decisions.

As PYMNTS wrote soon after, Affirm’s decision here is part of a growing movement toward including BNPL loans in credit and underwriting decisions.

In February, FICO said it would work to add BNPL data to its credit scoring analysis. That company had teamed with Affirm on studies showing that — for the 85% of consumers who had opened a new BNPL account — there was generally a consistent impact on their FICO scores.

That research also found that impacts on FICO Score predictiveness ranged modest improvements to no negative effect.

“The additional impact of having BNPL included in credit scoring may be that consumers will be averse to “stacking” short-term loans, with an eye on keeping their debt loads more manageable and boosting their credit scores at the same time,” PYMNTS wrote.

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