FinTech News

FinTech Affirm Brings Financing to Walmart Shoppers

Over the past decade or so FinTech firms have strived to make financing more transparent, efficient, and affordable. In turn they’ve also helped give customers who may not qualify for traditional financing more options to choose from. One of the companies at the forefront of this movement is Affirm — and the company just landed a major new client.

Affirm recently announced that it was partnering with Walmart to bring its financing to brick and mortar locations as well as Walmart.com. This Affirm integration will first debut on Walmart’s site in the coming weeks. From there Affirm financing will roll out to nearly 4,000 Walmart Supercenters across the U.S., except in Iowa, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. Walmart joins a growing list of major retailers and brands utilizing Affirm, including Simply Mac, Expedia, Casper, and many more.

Thanks to the new partnership with Walmart, shoppers who gain approval will be able to finance their purchases with repayment terms of 3, 6, or 12 months. Most items priced between $150 to $2,000 will be eligible, although some notable exceptions include firearms, groceries, pharmacy items, and others. Walmart customers will be able to check the availability and apply by visiting Affirm.com/shop/Walmart on either a desktop computer or mobile device. Furthermore financing decisions will be made in real time.

In a statement announcing the expansion of their service, Affirm CEO Max Levchin said, “Walmart serves millions and has become a leader in the retail landscape with its commitment to help shoppers ‘save money and live better,’ which closely mirrors our own mission to ‘improve lives’ with our products. I’m looking forward to introducing Walmart customers to a modern and innovative way to buy the things they need.” Meanwhile Walrmart’s Senior Vice President of Walmart Services & Digital Acceleration Daniel Eckert spoke to the benefits Affirm brings to shoppers, saying “We are focused on providing customers transparent, easy, and convenient ways to pay, and offering Affirm both in stores and online is one way to do that. Providing multiple ways to shop and finance select items with no hidden fees is an important way we deliver on our promise to help our customers save money and live better.”

Affirm isn’t the only brand looking to extend financing options and change the way people pay off large purchases. For example JPMorgan Chase recently unveiled their My Chase Plan option that allows account holders to finance purchase over $500, paying monthly fees instead of being charged interest. Elsewhere the ecommerce site Zebit allows users to finance any of the more than one million items in their market without paying interest, membership fees, or having a traditional credit check. This week the company revealed that it had over 300,000 users and is anticipating $100 million in revenue for this year.

There’s no doubt that Affirm landing a partnership with Walmart is big news for the company and for FinTech. Incidentally it also continues the mega retailers experimentations with FinTech that include the launch of Walmart Pay and working with PayPal to allow customers to make make deposits or withdrawals to their accounts at Walmart locations. In fact, Walmart’s head of digital wallets Karla Allen has previously said of FinTech, “We feel like there’s a gap in the products and services that are being built for middle America.” It seems that, by bringing Affirm on board, both companies are helping to fix that and bring transparent financing to underserved markets.

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