Afterpay Offers BNPL Rewards via Nift Partnership

Afterpay added a rewards program to its buy now, pay later (BNPL) offering.

The program is happening via a partnership with the Nift Network and allows Afterpay shoppers to discover and try products and services through the Nift gift network, according to a Thursday (Oct. 19, press release.

The partnership combines the rewards program and Nift’s proprietary artificial intelligence (AI), which matches Afterpay customers with a curated selection of gifts from the 12,000 brands advertising on the Nift Network, per the release.

“These exclusive high-value gifts are designed to help customers try new products and services, creating a unique opportunity for discovery and trial,” the release said. “With Afterpay’s flexible payment solutions, customers can easily unlock a world of possibilities while managing their finances responsibly.”

Nift has an audience of more than 37 million people due to partnerships with companies like iHeartRadio, Meetup, Mindbody and ParkMobile, which use Nift to reward their customers, according to the release. It matches customers with gifts from local businesses and national brands such as HelloFresh, Allbirds and Rocksbox.

The partnership comes on the heels of a travel season in which a large portion of consumers said they used BNPL to fund their trips, according to joint research between PYMNTS Intelligence and i2c.

PYMNTS explored the phenomenon in a conversation published Friday (Oct. 20) with Jacqueline White, president at i2c, and Ray Chalub, chief operating officer of Inter & Co.

Chalub said the trends seen during the summer are in place internationally. Even with inflation raging, he said, “this does not seem to be enough to stop the travel spending.”

PYMNTS Intelligence also found that younger consumers are leading the charge in adopting BNPL as their preferred payment option as they deal with high interest rates and a mountain of credit card debt.

“In fact, 28% of millennial and Generation Z consumers would abandon a purchase if BNPL were not available at the checkout,” PYMNTS wrote this month. “This shift in consumer behavior is reshaping the retail payments landscape, with BNPL becoming a must-have for shoppers.”