BNPL now available for UK Square Sellers through Clearpay
Square has launched its first integration with Clearpay in the UK, providing “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) functionality to sellers across online and in-person commerce. This marks another key milestone in the global integration of Clearpay (known as Afterpay outside the UK and Europe) following the acquisition of Afterpay by Block, as the UK will be the first market to launch BNPL available across all platforms at the same time, including in-store, online and can also be integrated by Square’s developers and partners.
“Since opening our website in the pandemic and incorporating Clearpay into our payment systems, we were very pleased to be informed that Square would be integrating Clearpay directly into its ecosystem”, said Jane Lyon, founder of Lornashouse Lifestyle. “We have been delighted with Square since leaving our previous legacy terminals and commerce solutions behind. Our website proved that many customers like the experience of spreading payments, so it’s great that business owners can offer this solution and meet their customer needs while having all the tools they need in one place.”
The integration will enable Square sellers in the UK to offer a BNPL solution that allows customers to pay in four interest-free instalments over a six-week period while merchants get paid right away.
- For online purchasing, Clearpay will now be embedded as a payment option within Square Online’s checkout system, giving sellers the opportunity to improve their average purchase size, increase basket conversion and attract more customers.
- Sellers will be able to accept Clearpay in-person at the buyer checkout stage through any Square point of sale software – Square Point of Sale, Square Appointments, Square for Retail, and Square for Restaurants.
- Developers can consolidate transaction data and build and maintain a single integration for Square and Clearpay payments with a few lines of code within the Square Web Payments SDK.
- Sellers who accept payments via Square’s Virtual Terminal dashboard can offer Clearpay via text message Pay Links or by using Square Terminal hardware.
“We’re thrilled to be integrating Clearpay both in-store and online in the UK,” said Alyssa Henry, head of Square. “The integration across platforms furthers our goal to give sellers of all sizes omnichannel tools that help them to grow by meeting consumer shopping habits, whatever and wherever they are. Clearpay provides our ecosystem with a new tool beyond an alternative payment method; it enables an omnichannel commerce solution that can offer true value to our sellers.”
The BNPL model is the UK’s fastest growing online payment method accounting for nearly £13bn of UK e-commerce spend in 2021. It is projected to double in value by 2025 to account for 12.1% (nearly £32bn) of UK e-commerce spend. Globally, BNPL is predicted to generate $680 billion in transaction volume worldwide in 2025.
Since integration has taken place across the U.S and Australia, a combined Square and Clearpay has already proven to attract new shoppers and drive incremental revenue for sellers of all sizes. Sellers using Square Online are seeing the following impact on their businesses:
- Transaction sizes are up: Across both the US and Australia, the average transaction size with Afterpay is 3x greater than non-BNPL purchases.
- Rapid growth in buyers: Globally, we observed a 180% increase in new consumers leveraging Afterpay through Square sellers between February and March 2022.
- Meaningful growth among key merchant categories: In the US, retail businesses that offered Afterpay as a payments option on their website are seeing a meaningful lift in overall online sales, with men’s and women’s clothing stores growing 17%; specialised apparel and accessories, 15%; pet stores, 13%; sporting goods stores, 12%; and jewellery and watch shops, 10%. In both countries, beauty and personal care businesses saw significant upticks in online sales, registering a 26% increase in Australia and a 16% increase in the U.S.
Rich Bayer, UK country manager at Clearpay, said, “We’re delighted to make Clearpay available to Square’s sellers to help them grow their businesses. These businesses can now offer more payment flexibility to their customers via Clearpay, giving them the tools to attract young and engaged shoppers who want BNPL as their preferred payment method.”
