Visa (V) is venturing into the domain of rivals such as PayPal Holdings (PYPL) by creating so-called buy-now-pay-later installment payment services for its credit card-issuing customers, the company says. Visa is quietly rolling out pilot buy-now-pay-later services, also known as BNPL, in the U.S., Canada, Russia and Malaysia. The credit card giant has set up a BNPL website for credit card issuers — mainly banks and credit unions as well as financial technology companies — that use its payment network. Merchants offer BNPL financing to consumers primarily during checkout when they shop online. Visa aims to make it easier for banks such as Wells Fargo and Chase to provide installment loans to consumers. While BNPL services have focused on online shopping checkout, Visa has developed pre- and post-purchase options for credit card issuers.The company calls the program Visa Installments Solution, company spokeswoman Caroline Capers said in an email. She added that Visa expects to make announcements in "the coming weeks and months.""We believe there's potentially room for as many different BNPL solutions as there are consumers who want to use them," Capers said in an email.And unlike PayPal and other buy-now-pay-later providers, which screen consumers for credit worthiness, Visa will not perform risk assessment on whether to extend installment loans for credit card issuers. But Visa has created network-level services so that credit card firms, fintech companies and merchants can exchange relevant information. Credit card firms will set their own financing terms.
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