Fiserv is integrating buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Affirm into its Carat merchant platform as part of the core provider’s latest business banking push.

Affirm is set to be the first BNPL to fully integrate into Fiserv’s Carat merchant platform, allowing Fiserv merchant clients to add Affirm payment options into their digital checkout. Fiserv sees the solution, which is slated for release later this year, as a roadmap for future moves with “proven” BNPL providers, Mark Hennin, Fiserv senior vice president and head of lending, told Bank Automation News. Fiserv has roots in the BNPL space, maintaining partnerships with providers such as Zip and Bread Financial.

“Later this year, our large enterprise clients will have access to Affirm directly through their existing relationship with Carat,” Hennin said. “Should these clients want to enable Affirm, they will have a simple means of doing so via our technology. We expect this will be a model for other integrations with proven BNPL providers.”

While stocks and valuations have been shaky in recent months, BNPL continues to be a major force in digital financial services, with BNPL expected to account for a quarter of all global ecommerce payments by 2026, according to Juniper Research. Banks have gotten in on the action as well, with the $587 billion U.S. Bank expanding eligibility for its ExtendPay BNPL solution to business customers in April.

Hennin told BAN that Fiserv’s BNPL rollouts will help businesses take advantage of an increasingly crowded and complicated BNPL situation.

“While the availability of more BNPL options adds convenience for customers, it is also creating complexity for businesses,” Hennin said. “By enabling direct integrations of BNPL providers to Fiserv commerce systems like Clover and Carat, we can simplify how businesses enable BNPL.”

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