DivideBuy, the leading UK Point of Sale (POS) finance pioneer, has today announced a partnership with Acquired.com, a UK payments specialist and payment initiation service provider, through which DivideBuy’s merchants will be able to leverage smart automated tools designed to eliminate the rate of failed transactions, boost approval rates and offer vastly smoother payment experiences for customers.

In yet another disruptive innovation from Staffordshire-based DivideBuy, LendTech’s partnership with Acquired.com promises to accelerate the uptake of POS finance among customers of DivideBuy’s merchants by reducing involuntary churn, slashing the number of declined transactions, and empowering far greater data insights through enhanced reporting and analysis tools.

Established in 2015, FCA-regulated Acquired.com is an agile payment specialist, offering tailored, custom-built payment processing and digital banking solutions to solve the challenges businesses have when processing, collecting and remitting payments. DivideBuy will leverage Acquired.com’s best-of-breed acquiring gateway and automated tools to optimise payments, routing transactions through different payment rails and acquirers to increase acceptance rates for merchants.

A key component is the Account Updater tool, which will enable DivideBuy’s merchants to avoid declined payments based on out-of-date card and account details, which reduces cart abandonment rates and gives a much better experience to customers. Account Updater allows businesses to take recurring payments and avoid complications caused by expired cards or updated account details, by automatically updating shoppers’ payment information whenever it changes, including account or card number, name, providers and card expiration dates.

Another game-changing benefit is that DivideBuy’s merchants can now send customers to secure payment links (Pay-By-Link) via email or text, enabling them to choose another payment method of their choice to complete the transaction. When integrated with DivideBuy’s interest-free credit instalment solution, this means merchants can drastically reduce the number of failed transactions at checkout, significantly boost conversion rates to drive more sales, and reduce the time it would take to manually chase failed payments with customers.

With DivideBuy occupying a unique space in the POS finance market by being both a tech solution provider and lender, the partnership with Acquired.com will ensure DivideBuy’s award-winning SaaS technology platform generates even more value for merchants.

Usage of POS finance and interest-free credit is surging worldwide, with the latest research suggesting an expected 157% growth in the number of users in the next five years, rising from 360 million in 2022 to 900 million by 2027, DivideBuy’s responsible lending-based POS finance solution is set to become even more commonplace across a growing range of merchant sectors.

Teresa Byrne, Chief Commercial Officer at DivideBuy, commented “DivideBuy’s mission is to disrupt POS finance with solutions based on responsible lending and give merchants every tool they need to succeed. Our partnership with Acquired.com provides game-changing levels of insight and service that weren’t available until now, and which promise to transform merchants’ sales performance. Acquired.com is the perfect partner for us – we share a deep commitment to providing ethical and responsible payment solutions, and a determination to help merchants forge long-lasting relationships with their customers. I can’t wait to see how Acquired.com’s toolkit will accelerate DivideBuy’s delivery of even more customer payment choices, and stronger revenues for merchants.”

Mark Johnson, Commercial Director at Acquired.com, said “Acquired.com is ideally placed to support DivideBuy’s payment processing needs at a very exciting time for the business. Our industry-leading payment solutions are built for scale and are supported by an unrivalled customer support team. We are looking forward to working closely with DivideBuy to further their customer-centric approach to interest-free credit and transform their payments ecosystem as they grow”.

DivideBuy’s POS finance eCommerce credit plugin integrates with shopping cart functionalities such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and Craft Commerce to offer interest-free credit through merchant partners. DivideBuy offers a fast 60-second application process and an immediate decision, which means that customers can spread the cost of their purchases with no hidden charges.

Having announced a milestone £300m funding agreement with global investment management firm Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP in 2021, DivideBuy is continually adding to its 500+ roster of merchant partners in an increasing array of verticals. On the back of its recent partnership with cloud-based CRM leader Salesforce, DivideBuy’s latest partnership with Acquired.com is set to broaden its consumer base, helped by the shift in consumer attitudes towards interest-free credit.

Acquired.com became a Visa and Mastercard accredited payment service provider in 2016 and gained a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) licence in 2019.