Shoppers on Amazon UAE can buy now and pay in installments up to 12 months.

Buy Now Pay Monthly. According to a report in The Fintech Times, Standard Chartered Bank and Amazon’s United Arab Emirates (UAE) website, Amazon.ae, are now offering installment payment plans to shoppers. Credit cardholders of Standard Chartered Bank can now convert their Amazon purchases into payment through installments up to 12 months.

Amazon’s payment gateway arm, Payfort, has integrated this new payment option into the amazon.ae checkout process. Shoppers can therefore opt for the installment payments option without needing to leave the online store. They also need not call the bank nor fill any forms.

Payfort – Buy Now Pay Monthly

Payfort, establishing 2013, focuses on payment processing across the Arab world. Its services include the facilitation of credit card acceptance, local payment methods, tokenization, fraud management, invoicing, reports and analytics, real-time monitoring, and installments.

Payfort, on its website, offers two modes of installment payments. The INSTALMENTS service applies to online purchases of big-ticket items. The other is a BUY NOW PAY MONTHLY offer of short-term finance for online purchases which is repayable in flexible installments. Payfort is offering this in Egypt in partnership with finance partner ValU.

Omar Soudodi, Managing Director of Payfort, an Amazon company, said, “We are extremely excited to be working with the Standard Chartered Bank to introduce his new service for their credit card customers in the UAE, allowing them to make purchases and choose to pay via monthly installments directly on Amazon.ae.” For

“Instalment plans give consumers greater purchasing power by allowing them to better manage their cash flows,” said Sethu Ramaswamy, Regional Head of Products and Segments for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered Bank. “We are proud to be among the first international banks in the UAE to launch this powerful feature on Amazon.ae.”

Details were, however, not available yet regarding the interest rate applicable to the scheme or any processing charges.

COVID-19 boosts BNPL schemes

Customers have become very circumspect with their finances given the uncertain economic outlook from the virus pandemic. This is one reason for the popularity of BNPL schemes.

Secondly, the suddenness of the crisis left many people unprepared concerning finances, and as a result, they had no alternative but to max out their credit cards.

In the circumstances, BNPL offers have proved to be extremely popular across the world. They may also disrupt traditional credit cards.

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