Finance Platform Railsbank Enters BNPL Arena

The embedded finance platform Railsbank has launched a buy now, pay later (BNPL) tool the company says will give retailers “a greater share of the spoils.

“Current BNPL providers brand their own offerings which take the customer away from the original retailer’s website and onto their own,” the U.K. company wrote on its blog Thursday (Jan. 14). “Here they engage and nourish, meaning the original seller misses out on a wide range of marketing opportunities.”

Railsbank, meanwhile, says its BNPL credit solution — initially available in Germany and the U.K. — lets retailers offer branded and fully-integrated payment experiences.

“Our solution means that the retailer’s customer does not see the BNPL provider’s brand, but the brand from which they are buying,” said Louisa Murray, chief operating officer for Railsbank’s U.K. and European operations.

“We want to remove distractions and allow retailers to maximize engagement with their users. We believe this is a unique offering in the U.K. and one that will be very popular to a number of different retail verticals including fashion, homeware, travel and sports,” she said.

Customers can use the Railsbank BNPL tool to split payments into as many as 36 installments, while retailers can declutter their checkout flows, discover new opportunities for engagement during payment and repayment, and link rewards accounts, the company said.

Read more: Exploring Buy Now, Pay Later’s Popularity and Digital Fraud Prevention Tactics

Railsbank notes that the BNPL market is projected to reach $3.5 trillion by 2030. And as PYMNTS reported in our examination of the phenomenon last month, the appeal of BNPL is easy to pinpoint: customers want products immediately but can’t or won’t pay the entire cost upfront.

PYMNTS’ research shows customers using this option for a wide range of purchases, including home and furniture goods (42%), electronics (30%) and apparel (24%). These rates shift with age, however; apparel purchases accounted for 40% of purchases by Gen Z BNPL users.