Visa Installments Solution Extends Footprints into Australia

The world digital payments giant Visa announced on Thursday the extension of its Visa Installments into Australia, through the partnership with ANZ, one of the country’s largest financial institutions, and merchant payment provider Quest.

According to the announcement, with Visa Installments, Australian shoppers are able to access popular “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) financing via their existing ANZ credit cards, during checkout and without any extra steps. Now, Visa is bringing the flexibility of BNPL financing that Australians love to the cards already in eligible consumers’ wallets and phones - for use during in-store and online checkout.

The Visa Installments Solution provides the underlying technology for issuers and acquirers in the Visa network to offer BNPL functionality to their customers. This means financial institutions can add BNPL as a feature for credit cardholders, on their already approved credit lines, in whatever terms are right for their customers. And likewise, acquirers on the network can activate the ability to accept installments for any of their retailers that accept Visa.

When qualified shoppers use their ANZ Visa credit cards at the in-store terminal or while shopping online at participating merchants, they’ll be able to select a repayment term displayed on the screen during the purchase process. And Quest is working with Visa to enable businesses to accept Visa Installments quickly and seamlessly - merchants with Quest-integrated point-of-sale (POS) software will not need to make any software changes to enable the solution.

Besides, the Visa Installments Solution allow participating lenders to offer a more flexible range of repayment plans – from three months to 24 months, with no interest in some cases– and customers can view their installment purchases, balances and repayment information directly in their existing banking apps.

First launched as a pilot in 2019, the solution has expanded to the U.S., Canada, Malaysia, Russia, and now, Australia.

Previously, Visa has announced its plan to open a new office in Atlanta​ in 2022 to grow its presence in the area.