Affirm Forms Pay-later Deal With Car Repair Platform Shopmokey

This arrangement, announced Wednesday (June 25), makes Affirm a default payment method for car repair shops that use Shopmonkey’s payment processing solution, letting them offer pay-over-time financing.

“By bringing Affirm’s flexible, transparent payment options to the Shopmonkey platform, we’re helping thousands of small and medium-sized auto shops better serve their customers,” Wayne Pommen, Affirm’s chief revenue officer, said in a news release.

“Car owners — who often spend nearly $800 per year on maintenance — get a responsible way to spread out the cost, making it easier to pay for the services they need,” Pommen added. “This in turn will lead to improved customer satisfaction and long-term growth for auto shops.”

The release noted that thousands of auto shops, most of them small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), use Shopmonkey’s payment processing tool. By using Affirm, approved customers of these shops get the option of splitting the cost of their repair bill into biweekly or monthly payment plans.

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this week, buy now, pay later (BNPL) companies such as Affirm are among a variety of alternative sources of credit routinely used by American consumers facing unexpected expenses like car repairs.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that 35% of consumers made an emergency purchase of at least $250 in the past year, while the median cost of those purchases was $605.

The research also shows that roughly half of all unplanned retail purchases are made using credit. Credit cards are the most common option, used by 33% of consumers for emergency purchases, with BNPL accounting for 10% of these transactions.

Meanwhile, research from PYMNTS Intelligence’s Pay Later Report shows that among Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck — a group making up about two-thirds of the population — 75% had been using BNPL plans, regardless of income level.

“The desire for easy, budget-friendly payment options is impacting how consumers approach large and small purchases. Many consumers, regardless of income level, used installment plans to streamline spending and preserve their cash reserves,” PYMNTS wrote.

Among consumers who routinely face cash shortfalls, 8.9% said they had used BNPL, more than three times the amount of consumers without such issues.