Affirm Holdings Inc., the growing payment system with accommodating conditions for consumers, will soon be widely available to consumers shopping on Amazon.com.
The publicly held, San Francisco-based Affirm said Friday afternoon that it’s in a testing mode with Amazon and that in the coming months Amazon will make the Affirm payment system broadly available.
The partnership was met with strong approval by Wall Street, which pushed Affirm’s stock price approximately 30 percent, or $19, to more than $87.23 around 6 p.m. in after-market trading Friday on the Nasdaq. Earlier the stock was up over 40 percent in after-market trading.
Affirm is a service enabling consumers to choose a payment schedule and know up front the total amount that needs to be paid, so there are no surprises with fees or hidden costs later. Affirm says it doesn’t charge late fees or penalties, and charges simple interest which does not compound. Affirm is considered an alternative to credit cards. A range of term-length options for monthly payments are offered.
Thousands of retailers, including Walmart Inc., Adidas AG, Peloton, Audi, Expedia and Neiman Marcus Inc. have partnered with Affirm. After shoppers fill their online carts with whatever they want to buy, they select Affirm at checkout and can split the total cost of any purchase over $50 into separate payments, with terms up to 48 months depending on the cart size. Approved customers are shown the total cost of their purchase up front and will never pay more than what they agree to at checkout.
As the Amazon-Affirm partnership stands, select Amazon customers have the option of using Affirm.
“By partnering with Amazon, we’re bringing the transparency, predictability and affordability that Affirm provides today to the millions of people who shop on Amazon.com in the U.S.,” Eric Morse, senior vice president of sales at Affirm, said in a statement Friday. “Offering Affirm’s alternative to credit cards also delivers more of the payment choice and flexibility consumers on Amazon want.”
Affirm says it “empowers millions of consumers to spend and save responsibly, and gives thousands of businesses the tools to fuel growth.”
Last June, Affirm disclosed that is it powering Shop Pay Installments, a buy now, pay later solution designed for Shopify merchants. Affirm built the Shop Pay Installment solution to be integrated onto Shopify’s Shop Pay platform, which already offers various services to merchants to measure their sales and monitor their operations. It’s another move by Affirm to gain market share over competitors operating buy now, pay later apps, such as Klarna and Afterpay.
In April, Affirm entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Returnly, which provides online return experiences and post-purchase payments, for total cash and equity consideration of about $300 million. Returnly automates the return process for retailers and is geared to take friction out of making returns for shoppers.
By: davidmoin
