French Startup Pledg, Credit Insurer Allianz Trade Partner on B2B BNPL

French payment solutions startup Pledg and credit insurance company Allianz Trade have partnered to develop a buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution for B2B eCommerce sites and marketplaces.

With this solution, B2B sellers will be able to offer their customers deferred or split payments, instantly, while still receiving immediate and guaranteed payments, according to a Thursday (Sept. 8) press release.

“By modernizing the practice of factoring, we make it possible to benefit from the operational habits of the business world — payment at 30 or 60 days, online and in-store — without risk, simply,” Pledg Managing Director Jacques-Olivier Schatz said in the release.

The application programming interface (API)-based solution combines Pledg’s BNPL technology with Allianz Trade’s information systems that deliver real-time credit decisions, according to the press release.

In practice, a buyer fills a shopping cart and selects the BNPL option, Allianz Trade’s systems analyze the buyer’s financial health, algorithms confirm the deferred payment and Pledg pays the platform. If a buyer doesn’t pay, Allianz Trade will be responsible for recovering the amount for Pledg or compensating it, per the release.

“Everything happens in a fraction of a second, without the end user even realizing it,” Mickaël De Sa, head of digital acceleration at Allianz Trade in France, said in the release. “Thanks to this mechanism, [eCommerce] sites can now offer their customers a fast and optimized payment experience.”

As PYMNTS reported in July, solving for B2B cash flow is where BNPL has a bright future in business, speeding up business credit approvals and onboarding more new clients faster, with greater surety.

Read more: BNPL for Business Looks to Rewrite the Rules of Trade Finance

“Fundamentally, businesses that get paid on invoice have been in the business of providing credit, they just don’t maybe think of it that way,” Amount Executive Vice President Sam Graziano told PYMNTS. “The idea of shifting that activity to a third party to do that on their behalf is something new to many of them.”

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