Amazon teams up with Affirm to offer BNPL products through Amazon Pay
Amazon teams up with Affirm to offer BNPL products through Amazon Pay, Legislators seek to curb Visa and Mastercard fees, and Stripe adds support for Cash App Pay
Hi!
Hope you’re having a better week than Visa and Mastercard: lawmakers in the US are making another attempt to cut their fees, while to tech companies continue teaming up to eliminate card payments altogether:
Amazon teams up with Affirm to offer BNPL products through Amazon Pay,
Legislators seek to curb Visa and Mastercard fees, and
Stripe adds support for Cash App Pay
Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow!
Jevgenijs
Amazon Teams Up With Affirm to Offer “Buy Now Pay Later” Products Through Amazon Pay
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has partnered with Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) to provide customers and merchants with an pay-over-time payment option for its Amazon Pay service. Thus, under the new partnership between the two companies, eligible U.S. merchants using Amazon Pay can now integrate Affirm's Adaptive Checkout, as a payment option at checkout. This allows customers to access Affirm's pay-over-time solution, which is already used by million of customers on Amazon.com and the Amazon mobile app (the companies started collaborating already in 2021).
Merchants such as Casper, USA Berkey Filters, and UltraSabers have already integrated Affirm's Adaptive Checkout within Amazon Pay. Affirm's Adaptive Checkout presents customers with bi-weekly and monthly pay-over-time options during checkout, and customers can choose Affirm as their payment method with no additional cost or impact on their credit score. Using Amazon Pay with Affirm enables customers to have a convenient and secure checkout experience, with the added benefit of accessing their existing Amazon account details.
Just last week, Affirm announced a multi-year partnership with Worldpay from FIS (NYSE: FIS), one of the world’s largest merchant acquirers, bringing Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout solution to Worldpay’s merchants. A year ago, Affirm stroke a similar partnership with Stripe, making its Adaptive Checkout solution available to Stripe users in the US, and later extending the partnership to Canada. Finally, Affirm is the exclusive pay-over-time solution provider for Shopify’s Shop Pay in the US, and the two companies extended their agreement last year.
✔️ Affirm’s Buy Now, Pay Later Added for Amazon Pay Retailers
✔️ Amazon Pay Adds Affirm, Providing Customers and Merchants with Another Flexible Payment Option
✔️ Affirm stock soars on new deal with Amazon Pay
✔️ Affirm Stock Soars as Investors Buy Now and Can Thank Amazon Later
Legislators Seek to Curb Visa and Mastercard Fees
Lawmakers have reintroduced a bill aimed at curbing the fees charged by Visa (NYSE: V) and Mastercard (NYSE: MA) to merchants when consumers use their credit cards, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The new bill would allow merchants to process credit card payments through different networks, such as Pulse, Shazam, and Star, potentially reducing the fees they have to pay. Currently, when a consumer pays with a credit card that carries a Visa or Mastercard logo, merchants are required to route payments through that network for processing.
The bill, first introduced in the summer of 2022, has faced opposition from big banks and credit card networks, who argue that it could lead to a reduction in credit card rewards programs and limit innovation. However, the increased support for the bill is attributed to feedback from small businesses and merchants, who continue to pay for those rewards and innovation programs. A similar rule for debit cards was previously implemented through the Durbin amendment in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Visa and Mastercard shares declined 1.29% and 2.26% respectively.
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission ordered Mastercard to stop blocking competing payment networks from processing tokenized ecommerce debit card transactions. The regulator’s order, which was the result of a years-long investigation into the practices employed by Mastercard and VISA, was aiming to enforce the Durbin amendment in the world of rising mobile wallet usage. Thus, the agency claimed that Mastercard was using its “control over a process called ‘tokenization’ to block the use of competing payment card networks.”
✔️ Lawmakers Try Again to Curb Visa, Mastercard Fees, With Broader Support
✔️ Visa, Mastercard Shares Slip as Lawmakers Take Aim at Card Fees
✔️ U.S. orders Mastercard to stop blocking competing payment networks
✔️ FTC’s Mastercard Ruling Is A Victory For Merchants, Consumers And Dodd-Frank
Stripe Adds Support for Cash App Pay
Payments giant Stripe announced adding support for Cash App Pay in the United States. The integrations allows US customers to seamlessly pay at checkout using Cash App. Customers can pay with their Cash App balance or attached debit card by scanning a QR code on desktop or redirecting to the app on mobile. “Cash App is exploding in our demographic, but it was always a black box for us because we couldn’t implement it with our previous payments provider,” comments Kush Patel, CTO of the barber marketplace theCut.
In 2021, Block (NYSE: SQ) integrated its Square and Cash App ecosystems to allow Square sellers to accept payments through Cash App Pay, for both online and in-person transactions. On its latest earnings call, Block reported that Cash App had 53 million monthly transacting users in March, up from 46 million a year ago, and that Cash App users deposited $61 billion to their accounts during the quarter, up from $48 billion a year ago. Cash App remains Block’s key growth driver posting a 49% YoY growth in gross profit in the first quarter of 2023.
✔️ Reach new customers with Cash App Pay
✔️ Square Offers Sellers a New Checkout Experience with Cash App Pay
As of yesterday, Visa’s market cap was $461.6 billion, which is more than the combined market cap of Paypal, Fiserv, Block, Adyen, Shopify, MercadoLibre, FIS, Global Payments, FleetCor, Bill.com, Expensify, Toast, Lightspeed Commerce, Shift4 Payments, StoneCo, PagSeguro, dLocal, Paysafe, Flywire, Remitly, Wise, Olo and Payoneer…that is crazy!
@ Affirm
Remote, United States
VP, Strategic Finance
@ AffirmRemote, United States or Canada
Global Head of Social Media
@ Cash AppSan Francisco, CA or Remote, United States
Art Director - Product Campaigns
@ Cash App
New York, NY or Remote, United States
Head of Stripe Startups Program
@ StripeMultiple locations or Remote, United States
Cover image: Microsoft Bing Image Creator, Powered by DALL·E, prompt “Max Levchin does it again, looks happy, pop art style”
Disclaimer: Information contained in this newsletter is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. You should do your own research or seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.