Why Card-Linked Installments is a Better Form of BNPL With Nandan Sheth, CEO of Splitit

07/30/2026|Peter Renton

Nandan Sheth has spent 25 years in payments, building three growth companies along the way, including Harbor Payments (sold to American Express) and Acculynk (sold to First Data/Fiserv). He now runs Splitit, which takes a different path than most buy now, pay later providers: instead of originating a new loan, it turns the credit a consumer already has on their existing card into an installment plan, with no underwriting, no social security number, and no new debit card for repayments. With agentic commerce infrastructure being built in real time, Nandan argues that a frictionless installment option is exactly what merchants need to avoid being commoditized on price inside an LLM shopping platform.

What We Covered

Three growth companies across 25 years in payments
What attracted Nandan to Splitit from Fiserv
Card-linked installments with no underwriting or new loan
The card loyalist versus the credit needy
$3.5 trillion of unused credit sitting on US cards
Merchant-funded 0% economics and where the budget comes from
A $1,300 average order value versus $250 to $300 for standard BNPL
Point of sale through the Samsung Wallet integration
Backing Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol
The overlooked small business to large supplier B2B use case
Chargebacks, repudiation, and who carries the risk in agent-led purchases
Splitit Go for the face-to-face services economy

Key Takeaways

BNPL is really two markets, not one. Card loyalists want rewards, protections, and habit, while the credit needy want a new line of credit. Nandan thinks both get served, but by different products.
The economics work because the merchant treats it as marketing spend. About 98% of Splitit’s volume is a merchant-funded 0% plan, priced comparably to a percentage-off promotion, and it lifts average order value roughly four times over standard BNPL.
In agentic commerce, price and delivery speed are the easiest things for an LLM to compare. A 0% installment option gives merchants a third lever that is not pure price competition.
The B2B version may be the stronger use case. Small business owners face both a time problem and a working capital problem, which is a sharper reason to hand off buying to an agent than a consumer shopping for a polo shirt.

About Nandan Sheth

Nandan Sheth is the CEO of Splitit, the card-linked installments platform. He moved to the US from the UK 25 years ago and has spent his entire career in payments and fintech, including running e-commerce and omni-channel commerce at Fiserv. He previously built Harbor Payments, acquired by American Express, and Acculynk, acquired by First Data/Fiserv.

Cleaned Transcript

Nandan (00:10): There are multiple markets in the world where installments on a card has been around for 15, 17, 20 years. So number one, there are many proxies that showcase that card-linked installments are real and can scale very quickly. Based on that, what we are changing a little bit is we wanted to build a bit of a merchant network, and then we wanted to go back to the issuers and say, okay, without any help from you guys, we have created this market for card-linked installments. Now, issuer A, B, and C, you have the opportunity to play at the checkout and compete directly with a fintech.

Peter (00:57): This is the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the show for fintech enthusiasts looking to better understand the leaders shaping fintech and banking today. My name is Peter Renton, and since 2013 I’ve been conducting in-depth interviews with fintech founders and banking executives. My next guest on the show is Nandan Sheth, the CEO of Splitit. Now Nandan has spent 25 years in payments and fintech, building three growth companies along the way. Harbor Payments, which sold to American Express, and Acculynk, which sold to Fiserv. And now he’s onto his third growth company, Splitit. In our conversation, we dig into what makes Splitit different from traditional BNPL, a card-linked installment model that taps the credit consumers already have, with no new loan and no underwriting. We talk about the merchant-funded 0% economics, why installments could become the default in agentic commerce, that was super interesting, and Splitit’s backing of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol. We also cover the overlooked B2B opportunity, the new Splitit Go product for in-person services, and where Nandan sees card-linked installments heading over the next three to five years. Now let’s get on with the show.

Peter (02:20): Welcome to the podcast, Nandan.

Nandan (02:22): Thanks for having me, Peter. Delighted to be here.

Peter (02:24): My pleasure. So let’s get started by giving the listeners a little bit of background about yourself. You’ve been at some of the biggest names in financial services. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the high points of your career to date?

Nandan (02:39): I moved to the US about 25 years ago, grew up in the UK. So over the weekend, my team England won. So I’m quite excited. But have been in payments and fintech ever since I moved to the US. I have been involved with three growth companies. One of them was sold to American Express, called Harbor Payments. Second one, Acculynk, was sold to First Data/Fiserv. And then the third growth company, Splitit, the one that I’m working on right now. I enjoy our space. I’ve been in it for quite a while. So made a ton of mistakes. And my objective is not to replicate those mistakes at Splitit.

Peter (03:19): You know, I did interview your predecessor back in, I think it was 2021, so like five plus years ago now. But I’m curious about what attracted you to Splitit in the first place?

Nandan (03:32): Yeah, so when I was at Fiserv, I was responsible for e-commerce and omni-channel commerce at Fiserv, and had dealt with a variety of different BNPLs. We had explored Splitit, and being a card payment geek, I quickly realized the value proposition being very different and the benefits it could create for issuers and banks. So to be candid with you, I fell in love with the product. There is no underwriting. There’s no social security number required. You don’t have to put in a debit card for repayments. It’s really one-click installments, which is super unique. And I had a feeling that AI would be around the corner when I took the job, and felt the reduction in friction would become even more important with both autonomous and AI-enabled commerce. So that’s one of the key reasons why I decided to join Splitit.

Peter (04:31): You know, I think one of the things I like about Splitit is that you’re using the credit that a consumer already has on their credit card. So there’s no need to take out like a new loan or a new installment plan or anything like that. So maybe just touch on how it works.

Nandan (04:47): Absolutely. So our focus is on the card loyalist. We’re not going after the cohort where they need credit. So we’re not focused on the credit needing market. I think Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay do a fantastic job of curating a solution for that segment. So the card loyalist is very focused on accelerating their usage of the card and aggregating their payments on the card, primarily because it’s the habit, number one. Number two, they love the protections. And number three, they love the rewards.

So based on that, the way our product works is you’ll go to Blue Nile, one of our clients, and you’ll be making a $4,000 purchase. Blue Nile would have explained to you that you can do 0% financing or 0% installments. When you get to checkout, let’s assume you have a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners, Discover card already on file. Your installment options will come up right under where you typically put in your credit card details. And all you’re doing is selecting one of those, and then the transaction will approve. Our approval rates usually are very similar to standard card-not-present rates, so between 85 and 95%, even at a much higher AOV.

The product is very simple. And if you think about the target that we’re going after, many of these individuals, Peter, have their credit locked up. So they’re not going to open their credit for buying a mattress for $1,000. They’re much more likely to use a card. And if you can put installments on that card, give them 0%, then they typically buy more. And just to give you one stat, there’s almost three and a half trillion dollars worth of credit just in the United States that is available on these cards. And most consumers have between 30 and 60% of their credit that’s unused.

Peter (06:55): So then what’s the business model? Who pays Splitit and how do the economics work?

Nandan (07:01): So the merchant pays us an MDR. The MDR affords a 0% plan for the consumer. So for about 98% of our business, Peter, the merchant funds a 0% installment for the consumer. Consumer does not typically pay any APR, any interest, and we don’t have the notion of late payments. So if we cannot collect after a 30-day cycle, we just write the transaction off. So it’s a very unique model. It’s very attractive to the consumer or the buyer or the shopper. The merchant uses it to drive conversion. And with the rates that we offer the merchant, it’s no different to doing a money off percentage or no different from any other marketing tactics that they’re using.

So usually the budget comes from marketing. The consumer pays nothing. The consumer gets an instant installment. Our AOV, Peter, is about $1,300 on average across our portfolio. Standard BNPL AOV, average order value, is between $250 to $300. What that tells you is consumers do buy more when they use their card for installments.

Peter (08:24): And so for that $1,300 transaction, what does the consumer see on their statement after they’ve done that purchase?

Nandan (08:30): Great question. So number one, they’ll see the first installment. Let’s say it’s a pay in 12 and the first installment is a hundred dollars. Okay, they’ll see that first installment, what we call an auth and capture, directly on their statement for that month. 30 days from that point, we make the second charge, so on and so forth. So they will incrementally see the charge, almost like a recurring payment or a subscription payment on their existing credit card.

In addition to that, we give them notifications through email and through text. And they can even go to a portal, Peter, and put in a new card, pay the balance off in full, whatever they may want to do. So it all actually happens within the card statement with some notifications driven by Splitit.

Peter (09:29): And so then for on the merchant side, are you going out one by one to the merchants? And I could assume if you’re doing that you’re focusing on the larger merchants, right?

Nandan (09:38): No, so we have a variety of different models, but the most utilized model is the merchant gets paid up front. We net out our fees, and the merchant gets their payment way before we collect the installments. We do have a product which is lower cost that allows some merchants to do what we call split payments, where we pay as we get the installment in. And they get the first two payments initially, but the most utilized version of the product is where the merchant gets paid in full upfront.

Peter (10:18): And so is most of your volume coming from online? I mean, do you have like an in-store equivalent or an offering there?

Nandan (10:28): Most of our volume right now is digital. However, we have embedded Splitit within the Samsung wallet. If you have a Samsung phone, or if you use the Samsung wallet, similar to the Google Pay wallet or the Apple Pay wallet, we’re fully embedded in that. And in that scenario, all transactions are point of sale. So anywhere where a Samsung wallet works, which is 98% of POS merchants, you can go to that merchant, make a purchase and do an installment, or schedule an installment prior to the purchase. Or while you’re making the purchase, you can select installments. So point of sale, we believe, Peter, is a very big market for us because the more traditional BNPLs have a little bit more friction. And it’s hard to execute that in a face-to-face scenario when you’ve got a line full of people.

So we’ve integrated into two POS providers, and we’ll be announcing a very large, what I call a direct POS implementation across about 12,000 auto shops and auto service providers across the United States. That will be our big first direct POS implementation. But we’ve had a lot of POS experience through our Samsung wallet integration.

Peter (11:56): Right. Well that also means that people can use it for any purchase whatsoever.

Nandan (12:00): Any purchase, there is no merchant dependency there.

Peter (12:03): I want to move to talk about agentic commerce, because this is something that’s just getting started. We’re building the infrastructure for it in real time today. And I was reading about your backing of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, UCP. Tell us a little bit about that and what role you think installments are going to play in agentic commerce.

Nandan (12:30): As we talk to retailers and merchants, Peter, there’s a lot of confusion around agentic and AI-enabled commerce. If I’m really candid with you, the retailers and the merchants are trying to figure out how to play. So our role in the equation, or our premise in the equation, is that retailers are going to find it hard to get commoditized based on price. When I do discovery on an LLM such as Gemini or OpenAI or ChatGPT, and what I mean by that is when I do that discovery, the retailer may have a value proposition that’s very different to just being the lowest price and fastest delivery. So how do you get a retailer to exhibit or profess that value when Nandan is looking for a green knitted polo?

And the way you can start to think about that is to offer zero percent installments in addition to fast delivery and a fair price. So we’ve actually got a user group of merchants. One of my board members is part of a large merchant team. And what we’ve discovered is if we can enable a solution that provides additional value that does not make that transaction a mercenary or cost-based transaction or commoditized transaction, then the merchants are very interested in how they can participate in that.

So what we’re going to do with the Google protocol is we’re going to embed our installments capability using that framework and adhering to Visa and Mastercard’s chargeback-related enhancements. And then we’re going to allow merchants to adopt that, so when commerce within the LLM surface becomes a reality, they’ll have the ability to prioritize some of those value-added features, including installments, directly on that Google surface or that OpenAI surface.

Peter (14:49): It’s really interesting because the way I’m thinking about it is, you know, when we move to agentic e-commerce, and it’s inevitable, it’s just a case of how big it’s going to be. This is an objective decision that an agent is going to make. And if you’re offering an installment product and the others are offering just full money down for with a credit card, I mean the agent is going to want to, I imagine, recommend that you do the installment product. It’s sort of a no brainer. So is that how you’re thinking about it?

Nandan (15:26): Certainly consistent with our thesis. The reality of how we scale is going to be really the litmus test. But if you think about it, when you get to more agent-based commerce, to your point, not only is this going to be relevant with the B2C use case, but if you think about B2B, more B buyer buying from maybe a large e-commerce or a large supplier.

So my wife’s a dentist and she spends quite a lot at, you know, a combination of Patterson and Henry Schein. In the future, if she had an agent that has the ability to look at multiple sources, but then come back and say, Dr. Sheth, yeah, the price is about the same with this other provider, but you can put it on 12 months, and she’s going to pay, you know, four thousand dollars for a new handpiece that just broke down. There is a really interesting small business to large supplier B2B use case that we’re also exploring with our partners.

Peter (16:35): That’s good because I don’t think people are talking about the B2B use case here enough. Everyone’s talking about consumers, and there’s going to be a big segment of consumers that are not going to use agentic commerce until it’s, you know, very well established for many, many years. Because a lot of consumers like to shop, but small business owners don’t. They’re always busy, they’ve got too much going on. If you can, I could see that agentic commerce gets like a real kind of foothold in the small business agentic commerce market, through that use case you just described.

Nandan (17:10): I think there is a time issue and then there is a working capital issue for many small businesses, right? So if you can solve both of those through an agent, I think the use case there, frankly, is a little stronger than Nandan buying a polo shirt. Right. So I’m with you. We’re exploring both.

Peter (17:30): Both are going to be part of our future. I think everyone agrees with that. How do you kind of think about AI agents making recommendations and the payment reliability piece of that? Because that is going to be a big part of how this infrastructure is being built.

Nandan (17:51): I think there’s been a lot of conversation around that, Peter. I mean, you do this day in, day out. I know you’ve heard a lot of the initiatives spearheaded by the networks, spearheaded by the merchant community, and also spearheaded by the AI LLM companies. But I think the key point is going to be how do you deal with repudiation or an exception, where the agent makes the transaction happen and then the business owner or the consumer that has the agent out there doesn’t like that decision. And that, as you know, has the propensity of creating chargebacks and a lot of expense and a lot of new process for both merchants, networks, and issuers.

And I think both Visa and Mastercard, we work with both quite closely, they’ve got a really good handle. Now the question is going to be, inherently, who’s going to take the risk? Is the merchant going to take the risk? Is the shopper going to take the risk? Or is there going to be some verification, validation that happens before the agent executes? And as the consumer, if you don’t do the validation, maybe you take the risk. I think it’s all being worked out, but I’m fairly confident it’s going to get worked out. Based on what I’ve seen and some of the working groups that we’re on, there are some really smart people, and there is a desire across the industry to come up with a solution when it’s an automated purchase.

Peter (19:28): So let’s talk about the AI-recommended BNPL, because you guys just did a report recently with Payments Intelligence. And tell us a little bit about some of the key takeaways from that report.

Nandan (19:42): I think thematically, not to get into the specific numbers because I’d love for people to read the report, it’s a quick read. But I think thematically, number one, using an AI capability for discovery is absolutely here. And it’s not just going to Gemini, but if you go to Amazon, I personally used Alexa multiple times on the Amazon interface for the consumer, I just find it easier than sifting through the variety of choices that I have. So I think number one, discovery’s here. It’s here to stay. And I think discovery is going to get better. And there’s going to be more of a ubiquitous model for discovery and a specific layer, either at the merchant or at the platform.

Number two, I think consumers are interested in pay later or embedded financing solutions across the board, no different to an AI experience. So I think there is a desire to embed pay later solutions within AI, not just from companies like us, because we’ve got a vested interest, but when I talk to Google, who’s a strong partner, they get it, because they understand that it’s the way people spend. So number two, I think pay later embedded financing solutions will be within the shopper flow through an AI-enabled purchase.

Number three, as you think through how that’s going to be executed and what the key functionality requirements are, one of the elements that that report showed was being able to do this without creating a new loan seems to be emerging as something that’s important, especially for Gen X and Gen Y. As you know, they are much more debit card users. They’re into transactional credit. They’re not into trying to revolve their balance like their parents may have in the past. So I think transactional credit becomes super important.

Nandan (22:07): But now the difference is going to be, are you going to want to do that through an existing card at an existing bank? Or are you going to a fintech to get that transactional credit service? And to be candid, I think there are going to be two camps. There’s going to be a camp that’s going to love their bank, that likes the rewards. Probably they come from your background and my background. They understand the protections, they understand that a refund can be done a lot more quickly on their existing card. But there’s also going to be a segment that’s going to be requiring credit. And it’s not a segment that has credit. So my thinking is there’s going to be new underwriting models that are going to be created to make it a lot faster than it is today in terms of consuming the credit. So I think pay later embedded financing solutions have to be part of the equation.

I think there’s going to be two camps. A more frictionless experience, selfishly, is going to win from my standpoint. But I think there are two camps. There’s going to be the card loyalist and there’s going to be the credit needy, and both of them are going to be serviced. And I think AI is going to change how underwriting happens, frankly, for both.

Peter (23:27): So I want to go back to talk about this face-to-face sales, because I was reading about the press release you had that said $4.6 trillion services economy in which decisions are made in person. Now you said your wife is a dentist. She’s part of that in-person economy. And that is being underserved, I think, by installment loans. And so how are you trying to address that particular part of consumer finance?

Nandan (23:56): We just launched a product called Splitit Go. It’s basically an installment capability for the servicing industry, whether it’s home services or other types of services, where you typically have a purchasing decision face-to-face. In many cases, it’s either at a shop or at your home. We really like that market. We also agree with you that it’s underserved.

So Splitit Go allows any company that has field services and field sales reps to do an installment there and then without any kind of credit checking, which is super unique. Because we have a large window installment replacement company. They would sit there with the customer, they would get their credit application, they would send it back. There’ll be tier one, tier two, tier three financing options, versus saying, okay, Nandan, your deposit is X. You can put that deposit on installments right now. Give me your favorite credit card. I’m going to tap that credit card, or I’m going to insert it, or I’m going to take a picture of it, whatever it may be, and you’ll get an instant qualification back to you.

I think there’s a huge opportunity there. So I think you’ll see the auto service and auto parts partner that we have, it’s one of the largest software companies in the space. So instead of going, as you know, this market’s a little fragmented, so you have to go through platforms. So we’re actually focused much more on going through platforms to get to those service providers. And very soon we’ll announce a fairly major deal in the auto space. We’ve got another one in general home services, a very large platform that has about 10,000 companies on it that are in a variety of different service capacities, from HVAC to plumbing to gutter replacement.

Peter (26:04): I want to kind of close with looking out, and it’s hard right now to predict the future, probably harder than it ever has been because things are changing so fast. But I would like you to kind of take a look at sort of this AI-driven commerce, in-person transactions, what we’ve been talking about today. Looking out sort of three to five years, does this sort of card-linked installment product that you guys offer, does that become like a default? Or is this still going to be a niche? Or what’s it look like in three to five years?

Nandan (26:38): Let me back up just a little bit and say if you look at the card market in Brazil, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, 60, 70% of those transactions are already installment transactions on that card. So there are multiple markets in the world where installments on a card has been around for 15, 17, 20 years. So number one, there are many proxies that showcase that card-linked installments are real and can scale very quickly.

Based on that, what we are changing a little bit is we wanted to build a bit of a merchant network. And then we wanted to go back to the issuers and say, okay, without any help from you guys, we have created this market for card-linked installments. Now issuer A, B, and C, you have the opportunity to play at the checkout and compete directly with a fintech. You may have post-purchase installments, but that’s not when the decision is typically made. The decision is made at the point of purchase.

So, number one, I think you’ll see many more issuers participating with orchestration layers like Splitit. Hopefully we dominate, but there could be others in the future, where instead of Splitit taking the risk and pre-funding the merchant, Splitit plays an orchestration role. So one of the first issuers we’re doing this with is Citibank. They have a very large credit card portfolio. And their cards and their plans are being orchestrated through our engine. So number one, I think you’ll see many more issuers at checkout, offering installments through technology providers like Splitit.

Number two, I think there is a huge market around debit. So right now we’ve only focused on credit, but many of the younger generation is really not as credit card centric as me and you are. And embedding installments into a debit card becomes a very important utility to compete with a Klarna, who just, I think over the weekend, announced that they’re going to be a licensed bank, not just in Europe, but they’re going to be a licensed bank in the US.

Nandan (29:05): So it behooves these issuers who’ve got the relationship, but those consumers are looking at fintechs. Why not replicate or make better the product that they’re looking for and bring it inside of their four walls? So number two, I think you’ll see more debit card-linked installments also.

And number three, I think you’ll see very unique cards that are either charge cards or credit cards that may not have just a revolver functionality, which is what most cards have today, but they’ll allow you to do transactional credit using AI, being AI native, directly on the card. So as it relates to kind of our world, that’s kind of where I see things in the future. The banks are going to get a lot more involved. The networks love what we’re doing, they’re going to get more involved. And I think we just become that utility or the technology provider that takes the transaction to the point of sale, to field services, and to digital channels.

Peter (30:12): Wow, yeah, it is exciting times. There’s so much change happening and, you know, I could see you guys are really well positioned. People have shown they like installments. Anyway, thanks for coming on the show, Nandan. Really appreciate your time and best of luck.

Nandan (30:27): Really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

Peter (30:35): I like the way Nandan framed the market, splitting it into two distinct camps: the card loyalists, people like me, who love their rewards and protections and have credit sitting unused, and the credit needy, who genuinely need a new line to make a purchase. We tend to lump all of BNPL together, but those are two very different customers with very different needs. And what I found most interesting is his prediction that AI is going to reshape underwriting for both groups, making transactional credit faster and smarter. If he’s right, the winners will be the players who can serve each camp on its own terms, rather than forcing everyone through the same funnel. Anyway, that’s it for today’s show. If you enjoy these episodes, please go ahead and subscribe, tell a friend, or leave a review. And thanks so much for listening.

BNPL, Splitit, consumer lending, credit cards

Fintech One on One Podcast