Socure acquires Qlarifi to stake claim in growing Buy Now Pay Later market

U.S. digital identity firm Socure has acquired Qlarifi, a UK-based Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) consumer credit database that monitors credit in real time.

A release from Socure says the result is the industry’s “first unified identity, anti-fraud, BNPL credit infrastructure,” which will enable consumers to build credit responsibly through BNPL repayment, reduce fraud losses for lenders and merchants, and provide transparency for regulators.

BNPL transactions are on the rise. Commonly offered by Amazon and other online services to give customers installment payment options, BNPL now accounts for nearly 6 percent of all e-commerce transactions in the U.S. and is growing at more than 20 percent annually. Global spend on BNPL transactions is projected to exceed 700 billion dollars by 2028.

Socure says traditional credit bureaus were not designed for the high frequency, small dollar lending decisions made in milliseconds that come with BNPL, which is effectively a short-term loan. This can lead to blind spots and risk on both the consumer and lender side.

Qlarifi’s platform aggregates real-time repayment data across BNPL providers. Alex Naughton, the firm’s CEO, says “we built Qlarifi to solve a very real pain point: the lack of infrastructure to protect consumers from overextending themselves across multiple BNPL providers.”

In combining with Socure, the company gains the commercial scale, balance sheet and analytics to “build the infrastructure that will enable responsible lending at scale and demonstrate to regulators that the industry can protect consumers while expanding access to credit.” That includes Socure’s Identity Graph intelligence and RiskOS engine tech.

The hybrid BNPL and identity tool is comparable to a health tracker for BNPL debt. How are your vitals? Are you overextended? Should we sell you this gewgaw on credit or not?

“BNPL has outgrown the legacy systems that were never designed to support their innovative lending products,” says Johnny Ayers, CEO of Socure. “At the same time, consumers deserve a safe path to build credit, lenders need real time visibility to reduce fraud and risk, and regulators require transparency and reporting. Qlarifi built the first real-time BNPL consumer credit database, and by combining it with SocureID and our Identity Graph, we can deliver the unified infrastructure that all market participants have been asking for.”

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  digital identity  |  financial services  |  identity verification  |  Qlarifi  |  Socure