As consumers look to spread the cost of major purchases, the use of instalment payments shows little signs of slowing down. In Ireland, its continued growth in popularity means that the total amount spent is expected to increase 10 times between 2020 to 2028, to be worth over €5bn*. To date, the option of paying via an instalment plan direct from a payment provider has largely been limited to on-line purchases or post - transaction with the card issuer. However, with the MultiPay and Mastercard tie-up, retailers across the country can now offer the choice in-store.

“Consumers now expect the same features and services they have become familiar with on-line to be part of the in-store experience too,” said David Maisey, CEO of MultiPay Global Solutions. “We want to allow Irish retailers to offer in-store instalment payments as simply and easily as possible. This has led to the launch of our MultiPay Instalment product, a new payment solution enabled by Mastercard that gives Irish consumers added control with how they pay, improving the customer experience, but without increasing costs or complexity for merchants.”

When set up in-store, a consumer simply heads to a sales assistant who has an Android payment terminal to complete their transaction using their Mastercard credit card and, once their eligibility is confirmed by their card issuer, subject to the issuer’s terms and conditions, they are offered their monthly instalment plan with a competitive APR.  

“As consumer demand grow in this space, we’re delighted that MultiPay’s system has been able to bring Mastercard Instalments Payment Services to brick and mortar retail shops offering more choice at checkout,” said Sonya Geelon, Ireland Country Manager at Mastercard. Our combined expertise and agility meant that we could quickly develop and integrate an innovative payment solution.”

Maisey continued: “The creation of our MultiPay product strengthens our relationship with Mastercard – sharing a vision of bridging the gap between on-line and in-store customer experience and having Mastercard’s support has been a huge benefit.”

To reduce complexity for retailers, MultiPay Instalments Payment Services Powered by Mastercard has been developed to connect with a merchant’s existing bank account. This also allows retailers to continue to use their current payment infrastructure for existing payment methods which, combined with it requiring no additional floor space, reducing the costs associated with deploying a new payment solution.

Delia Pedersoli, COO at MultiPay Global Solutions added: “Running on an Android device is a huge advantage to retailers that want to increase the flexibility of the sales teams and improve the in-store customer experience. Customers will no longer tolerate long queues to pay. Retailers need to ensure they are delivering a first-class customer experience in-store and on-line. The lines between the two have been blurring for some time now and this innovative payment solution aims to help align the two more than ever before.”

MultiPay’s instalments solution will be available throughout the month of May at selected retailers across the Republic of Ireland.