I think what set off the mania was the impression that Mastercard had signed Splitit to be the Mastercard BNPL service. The implication being that Splitit had all of Mastercard's customers to itself in offering a BNPL service. That's clearly not the case given that MC has signed multiple similar partnership deals with at least 3 or 4 Australian firms already over the past 6-12 months. I think what's occurred, is more like Visa/Mastercard has given the green light for Splitit's software to plug into their software, so that Splitit's software can offer a Mastercard/Visa based BNPL service.
If this is indeed MC/Visa's approach - to open up its network and software to outside payment companies to integrate with - then I expect Splitit will be just one of many payment companies offering a Mastercard based BNPL service in the future.
