Marqeta, a card issuing and processing startup, is partnering with installment lender Afterpay to provide payments solutions for merchants in North America.
Australia-based Afterpay operates in several countries, including the U.S., and allows merchants to give shoppers a digital layaway option through installment payments.
Shoppers only pay a fee if they do not pay off their purchase on time, which incentivizes them to pay off their loans on time. Marqeta has a partnership with Visa, which will remove some of the steps typically required to integrate Afterpay into retailers’ payment systems.
Afterpay is positioning this as a win for retailers: Faster integration with Afterpay means bigger consumer basket sizes.
Kareem Al-Bassam, chief payments officer at Afterpay, said the company chose to work with Marqeta because its technology stack will help expand its global reach.
“Afterpay looked at the field of providers out there and really liked Marqeta from a technology reputation and on its ability to deliver innovation,” Al-Bassam explained. “We focus on how we use Marqeta’s capabilities to speed our access into merchants. We connect directly to most of our merchants.” Through Marqeta, Afterpay will be able to more easily integrate into those merchants, he added.
See also: Marqeta to focus on growing product suite in 2020
According to Al-Bassam, once there’s a seamless integration set up with more U.S.-based merchants, the company plans to expand into Canada by the end of this year.
Marqeta, which works with many large fintech companies like Kabbage and Square to provide payment solutions, has issued close to 150 million cards to date and is certified to process payments through a partnership with Visa.
“This partnership is yet another validation that Marqeta is the natural choice for developers with true innovation and scale in mind,” said Omri Dahan, Marqeta’s chief revenue officer, in a statement.
Afterpay is currently growing its foothold in the U.S., where it’s offered by more than 7,000 retailers in the country and can be found on more than 10% of the beauty and fashion retail websites. The U.S. is Afterpay’s largest market, and the company hopes this will lead to its success in expanding elsewhere, including Canada. With more than 7 million customers, Afterpay is used by more than 43,000 merchants worldwide.
According to the company, Marqeta is worth nearly $2 billion. It closed a $260 million Series E funding round in May and has raised more than $370 million since it was founded in 2010.
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