Marqeta and Scalapay Team to Expand Europe’s BNPL Use

Card issuer Marqeta has teamed with Scalapay to expand buy now, pay later use in Europe.

The collaboration, announced Tuesday (Oct. 17), will see Marqeta work with Scalapay — a buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm operating throughout Europe — to issue virtual cards for online and in-person transactions.

Marqeta notes in a news release that BNPL continues to be popular, with a third of the consumers the company surveyed preferring this payment method over credit cards.

“The flexibility of the Marqeta platform further enhances the shopping experience provided by Scalapay,” the release said. “By leveraging Marqeta’s innovative Just-in-Time Funding feature, once a Scalapay consumer is approved for their loan and completes a purchase, a virtual card is instantly created and funded for the exact loan amount.”

According to the release, the card can be used immediately for online and in-store payments through a digital wallet or the existing checkout or POS, thus expanding the number of partners where customers can finance their purchases.

“We are constantly seeking new ways to leverage modern payment technologies with the aim of creating a seamless experience for our customers,” Scalapay CEO Simone Mancini said in the release.

“Marqeta’s technical acumen and scalable platform are an ideal partner for us in supporting our partners to create better shopping experiences for their customers.”

While Marqeta is seeing some customers prefer BNPL to credit cards, research by PYMNTS Intelligence finds that credit card installment payments are still used more often and for larger purchases compared to BNPL because they offer features that BNPL currently lacks.

“In fact, consumers expect BNPL to offer the same features as credit card installment plans, with most BNPL users (38%) citing rewards as the top feature that would improve their satisfaction with BNPL lenders,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

Still, the study – conducted with AWS – found that consumers plan to increase their use of BNPL in the next year, particularly among those who are already using it. The study showed that 43% of BNPL users plan to continue using it in the next year, while 15% of non-users intend to start using it — a sign of the growing interest in BNPL as a credit alternative.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke in August with Marqeta CEO Simon Khalaf about the company’s growth opportunities in the card issuance and earned wage access (EWA) spaces.

“We’re going to see a lot of traction in marketplaces,” he told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, noting that Marqeta sees opportunity in faster payments and EWA across labor marketplaces, along with creator and retail platforms.