Whilst I appreciate informed and educated critical analysis to keep people alert and on their toes I fail to see the relevance of your posting. For a start this is old news that most of us know about so it is not some new price sensitive market moving revelation. Secondly AMEX is only about 2.5% market share of the global credit card market. Thirdly, your wrong about it being the same outcome as you've not mentioned the fees and cost for the customer to use it. The money has to come from somewhere, and in the case of AMEX it will be coming from the buyer not the seller. This doesn't sound like a very competitive model to hit the buyer up with more fees, when other more established competitors are fee free and interest free:
Why do you think eBay charges the seller and not the buyer? Do you think eBay's model would be as successful as it is now if they started charging the customer money to buy things from other people? The case for how AMEX can sell this to ecommerce merchants looks weak ("to increase your conversions on your site we are going to charge your customers a fee to buy from you")?
The primary goal of companies like Splitit and other BNPL players is to increase conversion rates for merchants, the secondary effects are the benefits to Mastercard and Visa to providing opportunity to reinforce their brands at the checkout as well as drive more volume through their network (the network volume effect for Stripe here too).
The competitive advantage here is that Splitit does not charge the customer any fees or interest and is issuer agnostic for Mastercard and Visa card which together make up 75% of the global credit card market share. Buyers still get to use the Mastercard or Visa card issuer of choice offering them the rewards, interest rates and the specific deal that they have chosen. The cost of using AMEX Plan It (2.5% of market) incurs not only fees for the customer but there is an associated opportunity cost:
This stuff isn't rocket science
