Alliance Data's Bread Partners with Sezzle for Pay-Over-Time Loans
On October 25, 2021, Alliance Data's Bread business and Sezzle announced a strategic partnership to expand pay-over-time payment options for consumers. Under the deal, Bread's installment loan product is made available through Sezzle's merchant network, which includes over 40,000 merchants. The partnership provides merchants with a comprehensive payment product suite that combines Sezzle's buy-now-pay-later capabilities with Bread's longer-term installment lending.
Bread contributes its regulated installment loan infrastructure, while Sezzle provides its extensive merchant distribution network and consumer-facing BNPL platform. For consumers, the partnership means access to a broader range of flexible payment options at the point of sale. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal reflects the trend of embedded BNPL and lending solutions being layered together to offer merchants more complete checkout financing suites.
- BNPL providers increasingly layering complementary lending products to offer merchants full-spectrum checkout financing
- Embedded finance partnerships between fintech players reduce reliance on bank-issued credit products at point of sale