Confirmation of the expansion of Buy Now Pay Later to the UK

London – Buy now, pay later Confirm On Monday, it launched its installment loans in the UK, in the company's first expansion abroad.

Founded in 2012, Affirm is an American financial technology company that offers flexible payment options over time. The company says it guarantees every individual transaction before making a lending decision, and does not charge any late fees.

Affirm, which is authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority, said its UK offering will include interest-free and interest-free monthly payment options. The interest on their plans will be fixed and calculated on the original principal amount, which means it will not increase or double.

The company's expansion into the UK marks the first time it has launched in a market outside the US and Canada. Globally, Affirm has over 50 million users and over 300,000 active merchants, including Amazon, Shopify and Walmart.

The first merchants to offer Affirm as a payment method in the UK include Alternative Airlines, flight booking site and payment processing company Fexco. Affirm said it expects to onboard more brands in the coming months.

Affirm CEO Max Levchin told CNBC that the company had been working on its UK launch for more than a year. The reason Affirm chose Britain as its first overseas expansion target was because it saw huge demand from merchants in the country, according to Levchin.

“It's a huge market, and it's English-speaking,” Levchin said in an interview last week ahead of Affirm's U.K. launch, making it a good fit for the business. He added that Affirm will eventually expand into other non-English-speaking markets, but that will require more work.

“There are a lot of competitors here that do a reasonable job of serving the market. But when we started reaching out to dealers, just to find out locally, is the market saturated? Does everyone feel well served?” Levchin said. “We got a tremendous amount of traction in the market. We kind of sealed the deal.”

Competition is fierce in the UK fintech space. In the buy now, pay later segment that Affirm is focusing on, the company will find no shortage of competition in the form of big players like Klarna, Block Clearby, Zilch, W PayPalWhich entered the BNPL market in 2020.

What sets Affirm apart from some of these players, according to Levchin, is that its suite of financing products offers customers the ability to pay off purchases over much longer terms. For example, Affirm offers payment programs that last up to 36 months.

The launch of Affirm in the UK comes as the government consults on plans to regulate the buy now, pay later industry.

Among the key measures being considered by the government are plans to require BNPL providers to provide clear information to consumers, ensure people do not pay more than they can afford, and give customers rights when problems arise.

“In general, we welcome thoughtful regulation, which pushes the business into the market to do the right thing, but also knows how to not be too burdensome on the end customer,” Levchin said.

“Telling us to do a lot of work in the background before lending money is great. We're very good at automation. We're very good at writing software. We'll go do that work,” he added. “Putting the responsibility on the consumer is dangerous.”

Levchin said he had confirmed a license from the Financial Conduct Authority, the country's financial services watchdog, after months of discussions with the regulator. He added that the company's “good reputation” helped.

“We've never charged a penny in late fees. We don't pay deferred interest. We don't do any of the kind of anti-consumer things that people are experiencing,” Levchin told CNBC. “So we have this impeccable reputation of being very thoughtful pro-consumers. And merchants love that.”