Singapore’s IN Financial Technologies Debuts BNPL Service for SMBs

IN Financial Technologies (INFT) is rolling out a buy now, pay later (BNPL) feature, called INFT BNPL, to help customers grow their businesses.

As Taiwan News reported Tuesday (Jan. 25), INFT works in tech, retail banking and finance, often working with small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

This new feature was designed to improve on the old trend of letting business customers make purchases through installment plans, which have historically been tied to cumbersome credit assessments and document requirements, sometimes leading to debt.

The INFT BNPL solution offers customers 0% interest installment payments and a S$5,000 ($3,720) maximum transaction size.

More companies have begun offering BNPL as a service, and the report notes that consumers seem to prefer flexible payment methods over more traditional ones. However, because many companies take cuts from business profits, some companies might not consider offering BNPL to customers.

Per the report, businesses will submit invoices to INFT, who will then assess the customer and verify the purchase. After that, the business will receive the full amount from INFT, after it receives the first upfront payment from the customer.

By introducing its BNPL solution, INFT hopes to engender more competition in business and let more businesses reach a wider target audience.

PYMNTS writes that BNPL has been seeing more activity lately, with more companies trying to acquire one another in the space.

See also: BNPL Dealmaking May See Resurgence as 2022 Sees Crowded Competitive Field

The most recent was when Zip was reported to be trying to buy Sezzle. Although the discussions were far from done, as of this week, Sezzle’s value was reported to be around $300 million.

Additionally, in the last few years, Square had a $28 billion deal to buy Afterpay, Affirm purchased Paybright and Stripe bought Paystack.

All of these things are evidence that BNPL is still growing — but also that the competition is growing. Small firms might see it as necessary to have tie-ups to protect against the bigger companies.