Payments, Podcasts

Splitit’s Brad Paterson: ‘The state of the industry reminds me of the early days of PayPal’

  • Splitit enables consumers to make installment payments on their purchases.
  • New CEO Brad Paterson joins us to discuss his company's growth strategy.
close

Email a Friend

Splitit’s Brad Paterson: ‘The state of the industry reminds me of the early days of PayPal’

Splitit is a global payment technology that enables no-fee installments on credit card purchases. Unlike other point of sale financing platforms, Splitit isn’t consumer financing. There is 0% interest, no application or late fees.

CEO Brad Paterson has recently joined the firm after a 20 year career that included Visa, placed him at PayPal in its early days, and saw him leading Intuit’s US QuickBooks Online business. Brad joins us on the podcast to talk about the genesis of the business and how his firm found product-market fit. In an increasingly competitive market for point of sale loans, we talk about how Splitit differentiates itself. Lastly, we talk about the firm’s growth trajectory.

SubscribeApple Podcasts I SoundCloud I Spotify I Google Podcasts
The following excerpts were edited for clarity.

20 year career in payments

I've spent over 20 years in the fintech space. I cut my teeth at Visa where I spent a number of years in Asia Pacific in the merchant and consumer business. I then moved over to PayPal where I was the third employee in Asia Pacific. We helped build that business over eight years. It was very exciting times. I then moved over to Intuit where I lead the Asia Pacific business before moving over to run the QuickBooks Online business in the U.S.

I was at Intuit over six years before moving over to Splitit. I found a product that was delivering tremendous value to consumers that really reminded me of the early days at PayPal.

How it works

Our premise is that you can make purchases on your credit card and have them split into monthly installments. You need to have the available balance on your credit card. And wherever credit cards are accepted, you can use Splitit. Anyone who has a credit card can use Splitit, choose the number of installments and the payment is done. There's no account application and no issuance of new credit. It's a simple, seamless checkout.

Merchants love it because it doesn't add extra steps to the checkout. Instead of selling a $4,000 TV, they can market it as $400 over 10 months. We significantly improve conversion -- up to 30 percent in some cases. We're predominantly focused on ecommerce. We're really a technology layer -- we're not issuing credit to consumers.

Bigger purchases

We have helped increase order size. Of course, it varies significantly -- anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent. Virgin Pure, which provides water filtration systems to homes in the UK, recently claimed an average order size increase of 80 percent on transactions via Splitit versus other options.

Target merchant

It took us a while to figure it out as we were looking for product-market fit. Our target merchant is generally a merchant selling goods at $300 and above. Our average order value is about $850 -- much higher than other payment option.

We see merchants in homewares, luxury retail, health like dental and veterinary, outdoor sporting goods like electric bikes and kayaks, and furniture and mattresses.

We are increasingly present on brands people know and love, like a number of the leading mattress merchants, like Nectar. We're talking to a lot of well-known brands and I expect over the next 12 months that we'll be present on a number of them.

Getting the word out

To get the word out, we're predominantly active online, digital and social. We're increasingly looking at influencers and consumer advocates in the financial services space, who learn and understand our product. There's no silver bullet -- it's just about building out a lot of content to educate the market on our space and evolving our messaging and our brand. We're also looking at expanding our partnerships to help spread the word.

Stripe partnership

We're very excited to announce a partnership with Stripe, one of the largest payment infrastructure companies in the world. Given that we're a technology layer connecting into payment gateways, it can be a complicated onboarding process for a merchant. Partnering with Stripe makes us a one-stop-shop. Merchants can onboard directly to Splitit and Splitit Payments powered by Stripe, and Stripe will be the technology behind our solutions. Merchants can now onboard in hours, where before it took weeks. For us, it's about enabling scale.

0 comments on “Splitit’s Brad Paterson: ‘The state of the industry reminds me of the early days of PayPal’”

Outlier OpinionsMakers

Podcasts

‘If you can get Gen Z right, it’s going to build your bank for the future’: Citizens Bank’s Vice Chair, Brendan Coughlin

  • Regional banks like Citizens face a variety of challenges, from high interest rates to rising consumer expectations.
  • Brendan Coughlin, the bank's Vice Chair and head of consumer banking, joins us on the podcast to discuss how his firm is navigating the challenges and opportunities in this market.
Zachary Miller | November 21, 2023
Podcasts

Revisioning banking and BaaS last mile to safely deliver financial products

  • The BaaS ecosystem has been evolving and that means different things for the banks, fintechs, non-banks, and middleware companies participating.
  • On the Tearsheet Podcast, editor Zack Miller is joined by executives from Thread Bank, CCG Catalyst Consulting Group, and Infinant to discuss the last mile and where business models are headed.
Zachary Miller | November 17, 2023
Podcasts

The Gen Z Effect: Sustainability, technology, and the future of finance

  • Gen Z has demonstrated an interest in shopping for sustainable fashion, in goods and companies whose values align with their own.
  • In this special episode of the Tearsheet Podcast, executives from Klarna, Publicis Sapient, and Good on You join us to talk about the intersection between sustainability, technology, and finance.
Zachary Miller | November 13, 2023
Podcasts

Wise’s partnership with Swift helps modernize X-border payments for FIs

  • Wise and Swift joined forces to create Correspondent Services for faster, more affordable international money transfers.
  • This partnership enables financial institutions and banks to enhance global payments without major system changes, simplifying adoption.
Zachary Miller | November 09, 2023
Podcasts

The evolution of digital banking tech platforms and Deloitte BankingSUITE with Deloitte’s Tim O’Connor

  • In this episode of the Tearsheet Podcast, Deloitte's Tim O'Connor explores the evolution of banking technology, from monolithic systems to today's modular ecosystem.
  • Tim and Tearsheet editor Zack Miller discuss how modern banking is embracing an ecosystem-based approach to create customer-centric solutions and product propositions.
Zachary Miller | November 02, 2023
More Articles