With new RBC analysis suggesting that the US buy now, pay later market is set for explosive growth, Visa says issuers, acquirers and fintechs are snapping up its instalment payments technology.
In Asia Pacific, HSBC has tapped Visa Installments to roll out BNPL options, joining Moneris, CIBC, Commerce Bank, Desjardins, ScotiaBank and others in North America, and Home Credit Bank and Russian Standard Bank in Russia.
Visa is also working with Cybersource, FIS, Global Payments and Tsys in markets across the globe to enable its technology.
Meanwhile, this week Visa announced that one of the original BNPL giants, Klarna, has signed a global brand deal to accelerate its expansion and scale in several markets.
Visa's enthusiasm for the sector is in line with recent RBC Capital Markets analysis which suggests that there remains a large untapped market outside of Millennials and GenZ consumers in the US, fuelled by a strong preference for instalment payments over credit.
The US BNPL market could comprise around 50% of the global market by 2024 - making it worth more than $3 trillion.
However, the sector's popularity is causing unease in some parts. With the UK government opening a consultation on regulating BNPL firms, new figures from Credit Karma suggest that shoppers in the country have accumulated more than £4 billion in outstanding debt so far this year.
James Andrews, senior personal finance editor, money.co.uk, says: "The £4 billion figure revealed from this new research is certainly eye-watering, but is potentially just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the levels of the debt consumers have with providers like Klarna, Clearpay and Laybuy."