Scalapay Acquires Italian Payment Institution Cabel IP

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Scalapay has acquired Italian payment institution Cabel IP.

The acquisition of Cabel IP and its license will allow Scalapay — which now operates in several countries in Southern Europe — to accelerate its growth in Europe and launch new products and services, Scalapay said in a Tuesday (March 7) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

“This license means that merchants can now integrate Scalapay via their payment service provider (PSP),” Scalapay CEO Simone Mancini said in the release. “We have a long waiting list of merchants who want to integrate our solutions through their PSP.”

The acquisition was concluded Thursday (March 2) after it was authorized by the Bank of Italy. Scalapay is now the sole shareholder of the company, and Cabel IP will be renamed Scalapay IP, according to the release.

Scalapay was founded in 2019 in Italy, reached unicorn status with a valuation of 1 billion euros in 2022 and then continued its expansion in France and Spain. Today, the company’s BNPL offering is used by 5,000 stores, 7,000 physical points of sale and 3.5 million consumers who use it online and in store, the release said.

One key to the company’s growth in the BNPL space been its focus on smaller basket sizes at a time when many of its local and regional competitors are mainly focused on bigger purchases, Mancini told PYMNTS in an interview posted in May.

“Most retailers in Italy, France and Spain were quite skeptical and thought their customers wouldn’t need [BNPL] for 30 to 50 euros worth of products, but we were able to prove that it was quite useful,” Mancini said at the time. “And once they activated Scalapay, they saw 10% to 20% of customers adopting it straightaway.”

PYMNTS research found that BNPL has taken the retail world by storm, thanks largely to its array of benefits for merchants and enhanced customer experiences.

Nearly two-thirds of consumers said they are more likely to shop at stores that offer BNPL, and roughly two-thirds said that BNPL allows them to make purchases more frequently, according to “The New Credit Model,” a PYMNTS and Sezzle collaboration.

In Scalapay’s Tuesday press release, Mancini said, “Across Europe, merchants are adopting Scalapay’s payment solutions to acquire more customers and increase their sales.”

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