Visa Canada plans to help two Canadian banks provide installment payment options to card holders.
Scotiabank is the first Canadian issuer to announce that it will harness Visa’s Installments functionality to provide greater choice to credit card customers in terms on how they pay for purchases, and, in the end, greater control over their budget, according to a Thursday (June 24) announcement emailed to PYMNTS.
The launch of the offering is set to start in August of this year, and all qualified Scotiabank Visa credit card customers who opt to use the new installment payment option — named Scotia SelectPay — can divide up purchases they have already made on their cards with the rollout, the announcement stated.
“Scotiabank SelectPay provides our credit card customers with more flexibility and convenience by enabling them to select eligible purchases and pay for those purchases over time,” said Brett Mooney, Scotiabank Senior Vice President of Credit Cards and Unsecured Lending in the announcement. “It’s a fast, easy, convenient way for our customers to manage their finances, and when using SelectPay, our customers continue to benefit from all the other features on our award-winning cards including rewards and insurance benefits.”
Installments now comprise more than 1.7 trillion Canadian dollars (approximately $1.4 trillion) of global payment volume, and, in Canada, adoption has soared by 30 percent in just the last year, according to the announcement.
“We’ve been watching this trend grow for years, and we’ve developed a solution that is tailor-made for Canadian consumers and merchants,” said Visa Canada Vice President and Head of Product and Digital Brian Weiner in the announcement.
Another Canadian bank, CIBC, and Visa also announced that a new Visa Installments offering will enable qualified CIBC customers to choose installment options for eligible eCommerce purchases during checkout, according to a separate announcement emailed to PYMNTS. The option is expected to launch early next year.
“As the popularity of installment plans for online credit card purchases continues to grow globally, we’re pleased to be working with Visa to bring this innovation to our CIBC credit card clients here in Canada,” said CIBC Senior Vice President of Card Products Diane Ferri in the announcement.