Mastercard collaborates with fintechs for travel checkout lending

Mastercard is making a niche play in the hot point of sale financing market, teaming with Dividio and lastminute.com to offer installment loans at checkout.

In an effort to give UK consumers purchasing a holiday a new flexible payment option, Mastercard has partnered with Divido, a white-label point-of-purchase platform provider, and lastminute.com, a global online travel agency, to provide access to installment loans at checkout.

The instant financing with lastminute.com is currently only available in the UK. Divido’s platform connects shoppers to multiple lenders at the moment of purchase, whether buyers are online, on payment-enabled devices or in-store.

When purchasing travel on lastminute.com the consumer will apply for financing as part of the checkout process and select the desired loan term. The application is sent to Fly Now Pay Later via API, and if approved, the consumer completes the checkout process. The service is only available in the U.K.

Last year, both American Express and Mastercard invested in Divido in a $15 million Series A funding round. Divido has also conducted market research of retailers that contend consumers report higher satisfaction when having a wider range of financing options at the point of sale.

Unlike competitive alternative credit providers such as Klarna and Affirm, Divido is not a lender, but rather a platform that creates a marketplace for multiple lenders to compete for a purchase being made by businesses and consumers. Divido claims that it is on track to process its first $1 billion worth of credit applications in 2019.