Visa, the world's leader in digital payments, today announced the expansion of Visa Instalments in Australia in partnership with ANZ, one of the country's largest financial institutions, and merchant payment provider Quest. The Visa solution lets Australian shoppers access popular "Buy Now, Pay Later" (BNPL) financing via their existing ANZ credit cards, during checkout and without any extra steps.
Visa's fintech programs have been helping to enable the growth of instalments globally since as early as 2017. With the Visa Instalments Solution, Visa is now bringing the flexibility of BNPL financing that Australians love to the cards already in eligible consumers' wallets and phones - for use during in-store and online checkout.
The Visa Instalments Solution provides the underlying technology for issuers and acquirers in the Visa network to offer BNPL functionality to their customers. This means financial institutions can add BNPL as a feature for credit cardholders, on their already approved credit lines, in whatever terms are right for their customers. And likewise, acquirers on the network can activate the ability to accept instalments for any of their retailers that accept Visa. First launched as a pilot in 2019, the solution has expanded to the U.S., Canada, Malaysia, Russia-and now, Australia.
When qualified shoppers use their ANZ Visa credit cards at the in-store terminal or while shopping online at participating merchants, they'll be able to select a repayment term displayed on the screen during the purchase process. Quest, a leading provider of merchant payment technology, is working with Visa to enable businesses to accept Visa Instalments quickly and seamlessly - merchants with Quest-integrated point-of-sale (POS) software will not need to make any software changes to enable the solution.
With the Visa Instalments Solution, participating lenders can offer a more flexible range of repayment plans - from three months to 24 months, with no interest in some cases - and customers can view their instalment purchases, balances and repayment information directly in their existing banking apps.
This solution will be welcomed by Australian consumers, with a recent Visa survey finding that 90% of participants showed a high likelihood of using an instalments option from their issuing bank, and 85% saying instalments would improve their relationship with their card provider[1].
"There is overwhelming demand in Australia for BNPL financing through consumers' existing, trusted financial institution," said Julian Potter, Visa's Group Country Manager for Australia, New Zealand, and South Pacific. "We're proud to work with our long-standing partner, ANZ on the first roll-out of Visa Instalments that has been built from the ground up - at the network level - to be deployed in-store and across ecommerce channels without the need for consumers or businesses to do anything new. Now Australians' credit cards can buy now, pay later, too."
"We are always on the lookout for products and services that add genuine value to our customers and the ability to make instalment payments is a key feature that many of them want," ANZ Head of Cards and Personal Lending Mike Shurlin said. "Visa Instalments ticks all the boxes in terms of its flexibility, security and ease-of-use, allowing us to add more optionality and create better experiences for our credit card customers."
"We have worked with Visa on a number of customer solutions in the past, including a wide range of mobile payments and loyalty solutions, and we share the same focus: making payments simple, flexible and secure for our customers. We look forward to working with Visa to bring this exciting new payment option to our customers," Mr Shurlin added.
"Quest is delighted to be working closely with Visa to offer instalment payments through our family of trusted payment terminals, already used by many of Australia's best known retail brands. In making this available through our omnichannel payment gateway solutions, retailers will be able to offer instalment payment options to their customers both online and in-store," said Luke Fuller, Head of SME and Alternative Payments at Quest.
[1] Research on instalments solutions was commissioned by Visa and conducted among Australian credit card holders online in September 2020 by UX Army. |
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