Mastercard and Pine Labs will launch their integrated “pay later” solution in five more South East Asian markets early next year.

This will offer consumers the flexibility of zero-interest instalments on purchases, expand business for merchants and connect banks, fintechs, payment gateways and device makers to a rapidly growing financing alternative.

By combining the expertise and technology assets of Mastercard and Pine Labs, an India-based provider of retail point of sale (POS) solutions, the expansion adds to their existing “pay later” partnership in India and Malaysia that started in early 2020. The solution will be rolled out in Thailand and the Philippines in February, followed shortly by Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia.

Mastercard research shows 43% of consumers in the region would be willing to increase spending by at least 15% if they were to pay in instalments.

Card-linked instalments are common on credit cards across South East Asia but this solution is much broader by enabling instalments via credit cards, debit cards and bank accounts across in-store and online merchants.

Lenders and merchants can benefit from the simplicity of a single access point into an instalments network that is easy to integrate and quick to scale.

“The ‘pay later’ option gives consumers the flexibility to manage their cash flow better by offering them the choice to pay in instalments at the point of sale. For merchants, being able to offer instalments at checkout directly influences consumer buying behavior that leads to an increase in the average ticket size, reduces cart abandonment and results in higher sales,”

said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Products and Innovation, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.

“Together with Mastercard, we are opening new and innovative ways for consumers to decide how they shop and pay while empowering merchants, banks and other lenders to join this growing trend of consumer financing at checkout that has become even more popular during COVID-19. With our expertise in the ‘pay later’ space combined with Mastercard’s global presence and technology infrastructure, we are bringing to life an omni-channel solution that is easy to enable for all the participants and fast to scale.”

said Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs.

In January this year, Mastercard also made an investment in Pine Labs, which reportedly processes more than US$30 billion of payments per year, serves about 150,000 merchants across 450,000 network points in South Asia, South East Asia and the Middle East and works closely with lenders and merchants to design and deliver the financing at checkout to consumers.