Amazon Expands UK BNPL Footprint With Affirm Partnership

Amazon has partnered with Affirm to provide installment payment options for its customers in the United Kingdom. The announcement, made on September 23rd, allows customers to select Affirm as their payment method during checkout and apply for instant eligibility. Vassil Gedov, Amazon's general manager of payment products in Europe, explained that the partnership aims to offer customers genuine choice and flexibility regarding payment methods.

With Affirm's financing options, customers can manage their spending with clear terms and no late fees, all within the Amazon shopping experience they are already familiar with.

Eligible customers can pay for purchases of at least £50 (approximately $66) through three interest-free installments over three months or a 48-month interest-bearing option. The new financing features will be progressively introduced to eligible customers on Amazon's UK website in the coming weeks, but will not be applicable to gift cards, groceries, out-of-stock items, and certain digital content, including music, videos, Kindle books, apps, and game downloads.

Affirm's new underwriting model has been designed to approve customers that older versions would have declined, including those with limited credit histories and no FICO score at all. The company's new model takes into account the time dimension of multiple purchases and credit events in a customer's life, using transformer technology to add the proper chronology to a customer's credit story.

By leveraging years of lending history, Affirm can now identify customers who would have been denied by older models but can still repay their debts. For Affirm, this means mitigating the number of customers they turn away, while offering new credit opportunities to subprime and near-prime consumers.