Mastercard Expands US Installment Payments to More Digital Points of Sale

Mastercard is expanding its U.S. Installments program to all eligible digital points of sale.

This offering will allow merchants, financial service providers, payments processors and digital wallets to present installment offers for consumers to any eligible credit card from participating issuers, the company said in a Friday (Oct. 25) press release.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen consumer demand and adoption of installments continue to rise as digital payment options grow across channels,” Seema Chibber, executive vice president, core products, Mastercard, North America, said in the release. “Fueling that momentum is driven by issuer and merchant desire to deliver simple, transparent and flexible ways to pay, whenever and wherever consumers are.”

With this expansion of Mastercard Installment Payment Services, participating issuers can extend their card-attached offers to a variety of consumer payment channels; participating merchants will be able to provide access to pre-approved offers by connecting to the application programming interface (API)-based platform; and consumers will be able to spread out their purchases over time, according to the release.

“Through Mastercard’s personalization capabilities, issuers and merchants can offer eligible consumers the choice to receive tailored installment payments offers over time,” the release said. “This provides them with more flexibility and control over large purchases, from travel to shopping.”

Fifty percent of consumers say they are likely to switch to merchants offering installment plans tied to their existing credit cards during checkout, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit collaboration, “Redefining Retail: Consumer Finance Trends Driving the Evolution of Pay Later Plans.”

The report also found that 33% of consumers would specifically choose credit card installments for high-value purchases.

Pay later plans have benefits for merchants as well, according to another PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit collaboration, “Innovations and Development of Card-Linked Installment Plans.”

Card-linked installment plans help merchants grow and keep things running smoothly despite changing consumer preferences, the report found, adding that more than 70% of merchants prefer consumers use their existing general-purpose credit card for installments over other pay later programs.

The report also found that 57% of merchants think consumers will switch to competitors offering these plans.