European Alternatives to Affirm
Looking for a European alternative to Affirm? Affirm, Inc. is a US company whose consumer loans are made by US lending partners such as Cross River Bank, according to its own legal footer, and its shopper regions are the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Merchants in the EU who want an instalment option at checkout therefore need a provider that is regulated in the shopper's own market.
The European providers below split into consumer instalment tools for single markets and B2B tools for invoices and trade accounts, each with a named European regulated entity.
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12 European Alternatives to Affirm
Alma
Instalment and pay-later checkout with published merchant fees
Mondu
B2B invoice, instalment and trade-account payments
Scalapay
Interest-free pay in 3 or 4 for Italian and EU shops
SeQura
Pay-later and instalment checkout built in Barcelona
Billie
B2B pay later, pay in X and pay on account
Two
B2B net terms with AI credit and fraud decisions
Pledg
Payment facilities for web, shop and call centre
Hokodo
Trade accounts and 30, 60 or 90 day terms for B2B
Riverty
Bank-backed invoice, instalment and direct debit methods
Walley
Nordic checkout with invoice, instalments and Swish
Payl8r
FCA-regulated second-line retail finance for UK shops
Zilch
UK card and wallet that sends shoppers to retailers
Key takeaways
- Affirm lists the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as its shopper regions, so a euro-area shopper is outside its footprint.
- Affirm's own footer names US lending partners such as Cross River Bank as the makers of its consumer loans.
- Alma is the only provider on this page that prints its merchant fees in a table: 3.60% excluding VAT for payment in 2 instalments and 4.20% for pay later at 15 days.
- Mondu, Billie, Two and Hokodo cover the business-to-business case, where the buyer is a company that wants 30 to 90 days.
- Payl8r and Zilch are UK companies, so they are alternatives for UK merchants rather than for the euro area.
Why people leave Affirm
Affirm, Inc. is a US company that sells instalment payments at checkout. According to its own legal footer, the consumer loans are made by US lending partners such as Cross River Bank, and the company shows an NMLS licence ID and a servicing entity, Affirm Loan Services, LLC. For a merchant that is a useful detail: the party that lends to your shopper is an American bank partner, not a company supervised where your shopper lives.
The footprint follows from that set-up. The shopper regions Affirm lists are the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. A webshop in Lyon, Milan or Hamburg that adds Affirm to its checkout is therefore adding a button that its own customers cannot use, however well the product works for American shoppers.
People who search for an alternative to Affirm are mostly one of two kinds. Some are European merchants who want an instalment option and find that the incumbent does not serve their shoppers. Others are European buyers of payment services who prefer a contracting party, a regulator and a complaints route in their own jurisdiction. Both end up comparing the same twelve providers below.
- The shoppers are in the wrong regions Affirm names the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as its shopper regions. No euro-area country is on that list. A merchant whose customers live in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands or the Nordics has to look elsewhere for an instalment button that approves a local card or bank account.
- The lender sits in the United States Affirm describes its loans as made by US lending partners such as Cross River Bank. The European providers on this page each name a regulated entity in the shopper's own market instead: a Luxembourg bank at Riverty, a Swedish bank at Walley, a Dutch e-money institution at Mondu, a German BaFin-supervised company at Billie.
- Consumer credit rules differ per country Riverty's buyer terms refer to credit checks under the consumer credit directive CCD2, and Pledg and Alma run eligibility checks on cards issued in Europe. Those flows are built around European card and bank data. A product designed around US credit files has no obvious equivalent for a Spanish or Swedish shopper.
- B2B buyers need invoices, not consumer loans Several of the tools replace Affirm's business offers with something built for company buyers: Mondu, Billie, Two and Hokodo pay the seller up front and carry the invoice for 30 to 90 days. A wholesaler or marketplace in Europe gets credit checks on companies, which a consumer instalment loan does not provide.
What you have to replace, not just match
Replacing Affirm is less about copying a button than about choosing which part of its job you need. The first part is consumer instalments: pay in 3 or 4 (Scalapay, Alma), longer plans of up to 24 months (SeQura), or bank-run invoice credit (Riverty, Walley). The second part is the merchant guarantee. Alma, Scalapay, Pledg and Billie all state that the shop is paid in full while the provider collects from the shopper.
The second thing to replace is the integration. Alma offers modules, an API and a free sandbox. Scalapay runs a developer portal and plugins, and SeQura shows live and sandbox logins. Riverty reaches merchants through Mollie and Adyen, and Billie plugs into Stripe, Adyen, Mollie and Klarna. If your stack already runs through one of those processors, check the payment-method list there before signing a separate contract.
Third, decide whether you need one market or many. Pledg and Alma lean towards France, SeQura towards Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, Walley towards Sweden, Finland and Norway, and Scalapay lists nine country sites. Payl8r and Zilch serve UK residents only. No single European provider on the page matches Affirm's four-region spread, so a pan-European shop usually ends up with two contracts.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Alma | Neuilly-sur-Seine, France | No set-up or monthly charge in the standard offer below €1M turnover; per-product rates sit on the pricing page, where 2 instalments show 3.60% excl. VAT and pay later at 15 days shows 4.20% | EU (France) |
| #2 | Mondu | Amsterdam, Netherlands | No price list; each merchant agrees its own terms | EU (Netherlands) |
| #3 | Scalapay | Milan, Italy | No price list; the merchant page only offers a contact form | EU (Italy) |
| #4 | SeQura | Barcelona, Spain | Not published | EU (Spain) |
| #5 | Billie | Berlin, Germany | Merchant fees negotiated per contract; not published | EU (Germany) |
| #6 | Two | London, United Kingdom | No price list; pricing follows a demo request | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #7 | Pledg | Paris, France | No price list; pricing follows a demo request | EU (France) |
| #8 | Hokodo | London, United Kingdom | No price list; modules are billed on a 'pay for what you use' basis | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #9 | Riverty | Luxembourg, Luxembourg | No price list; sales contact required | EU (Luxembourg) |
| #10 | Walley | Gothenburg, Sweden | Not published | EU (Sweden) |
| #11 | Payl8r | United Kingdom, United Kingdom | No price found on the pages checked | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #12 | Zilch | London, United Kingdom | Retailers are charged per purchase at unpublished rates; shopper plans are Standard (free), Extra (£2.99 a month) and Plus (£4.99 a month) | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
How each alternative compares to Affirm
Best for: French and Benelux shops that want to see the price of each payment product up front.
Against Affirm, Alma starts from the other side of the Atlantic. Alma SAS is registered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, checks cards issued in Europe, and its country selector lists France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany and Portugal. Its products are payment in 2, 3 or 4 instalments and pay later at 15 or 30 days.
The pricing page is the practical difference: 3.60% excluding VAT for 2 instalments, 4.20% for pay later at 15 days, nothing for set-up or monthly use up to €1M turnover. Rates rise for American Express and business cards. A merchant can compare that table with whatever Affirm quotes it.
What Alma does better than Affirm
- Shows merchant fees in a public table
- Serves shoppers in eight euro-area countries
- Pays the shop in full even when customers pay late
- Free sandbox for testing the integration
Where Alma is a step down from Affirm
- 10 to 12 instalment plans are on a waiting list
- No presence in the US, Canada, Australia or the UK
- Consumer only, so no help for B2B invoices
Standout against Affirm. It is the only provider on the page that prints its merchant rates.
Best for: Sellers with company customers who expect 30 to 90 days to pay.
Mondu answers a different question than Affirm's consumer loans do. Its buyer is a company, its product is an invoice with terms of 30 to 90 days, and its entity is Mondu Financial Services B.V. in Amsterdam, with an e-money institution licence issued by De Nederlandsche Bank. The licence number is printed in the imprint, which makes the regulatory claim checkable.
The merchant is paid up front in each model: invoice, instalments over 3, 6 or 12 months, or a digital trade account. A seller may also approve an order that Mondu would decline and carry the risk itself. That lever suits a trade relationship, where a shop knows its buyer better than a scoring model does.
What Mondu does better than Affirm
- Built for company buyers instead of private shoppers
- Named Dutch regulator and licence number
- Lets the seller overrule a credit decline
- Dunning and reconciliation come with the contract
Where Mondu is a step down from Affirm
- No published fees
- Useless for a shop that sells to private customers
- Founding year and payout terms not stated
Standout against Affirm. Merchants can accept an order that Mondu itself would decline.
Best for: Italian retailers selling into other euro-area countries without a second contract.
Scalapay is the nearest functional match to the instalment button most people picture when they think of Affirm. The shopper picks it at checkout, opens an account in a couple of minutes and pays in three monthly instalments without interest, using Visa, Mastercard or American Express. SCALAPAY S.R.L. is registered in Milan.
The country picker lists nine sites: Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland. A pay-by-link covers sales by message or email, and the in-store flow uses a barcode shown at the counter. Merchant counts differ between its pages, so none is quoted here.
What Scalapay does better than Affirm
- Nine euro-area country sites against none for Affirm
- Pay-by-link for sales outside the webshop
- Full amount paid to the merchant at once
- Plugins and a developer portal for integration
Where Scalapay is a step down from Affirm
- No merchant fees shown, only a contact form
- Instalments only, with no invoice option
- Fullest merchant text is in Italian
Standout against Affirm. One contract reaches shoppers in nine European countries.
Best for: Merchants selling higher-value items or courses in southern Europe.
SeQura, legally SEQURA WORLDWIDE, S.A. in Barcelona, offers pay later up to 30 days, monthly instalments up to 24 months and a split in 3. Against Affirm, the difference is the vertical packaging: eduQa for course providers, optiQa for opticians and a travel offer with up to 12 instalments.
The consumer pages carry a selector for Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, and the merchant page says Germany is coming. SeQura also runs a shopper app with cashback, which is a traffic channel for merchants. Several financial-service documents show as pending on its legal page.
What SeQura does better than Affirm
- Plans up to 24 months for larger baskets
- Sector packages for education, optical, travel and repairs
- Covers online, store and phone sales
- Named Spanish register entry and tax number
Where SeQura is a step down from Affirm
- Coverage is narrow, with Germany not yet live
- No published fees
- Some legal documents listed as pending
Standout against Affirm. It builds separate packages for schools, opticians and travel sellers.
Best for: German and wider European B2B shops already running Stripe, Adyen or Mollie.
Billie GmbH is registered in Berlin and supervised by BaFin. Where Affirm's published regions are all outside the euro area, Billie sits in Germany and holds its data there. It offers Pay Later, Pay in X and Pay on Account, and pays the merchant upfront whether or when the business buyer settles.
The company reports more than €3 billion in processed volume, over 9,000 merchants and 1.3 million active business buyers, all its own figures. It plugs into Stripe, Adyen, Mollie and Klarna as a payment method, so adding it can be a configuration step on a processor you already use.
What Billie does better than Affirm
- German entity under BaFin supervision
- Data location stated as Germany
- Sits inside Stripe, Adyen, Mollie and Klarna
- Seller is paid upfront for every buyer
Where Billie is a step down from Affirm
- No consumer checkout at all
- Fees negotiated per contract and not published
- Credit and fraud checks add underwriting work
Standout against Affirm. It can be switched on as a B2B payment method inside processors you already use.
Best for: B2B sellers who want invoice terms at checkout and no credit-control staff.
Two works as a London-registered B2B platform with offices in Oslo, London, Glasgow and Stockholm. The buyer terms name TWO B2B LTD, registered in England and Wales. Credit decisions come from a system Two calls Delphi, which the company says answers in under two seconds, a claim that could not be checked from a register.
Guest checkout credit needs no buyer sign-up, a trade account serves repeat buyers, and instalments can run beyond 36 months while the seller is paid in full. Against Affirm's consumer loans this is a different market. It is also a UK entity, so it sits outside the EEA.
What Two does better than Affirm
- Terms for guest buyers without sign-up
- Instalments beyond 36 months for large orders
- Dunning and collection run by Two
- Offices in Oslo and Stockholm as well as London
Where Two is a step down from Affirm
- Contracting entity for merchants not confirmed
- Strictly business buyers
- Performance figures are Two's own statements
Standout against Affirm. A buyer who has never ordered before can get invoice terms without registering.
Best for: French travel, retail and leisure merchants selling online, in store and by phone.
Pledg SAS is a Paris company that has been wholly owned by Crédit Agricole Personal Finance & Mobility since February 2024. Against Affirm, a bank-group owner and a French register entry replace a US lending partner. Its legal notice names OVH in Roubaix as web host, though the location of payment data is not stated.
Pledg lets a merchant choose the channel, payment method and schedule: split in 2, 3 or 4, or deferred, across web, store and call centre. It runs scoring and collections itself and hands the merchant an accounting reconciliation. The site is in French and gives no country list or fees.
What Pledg does better than Affirm
- Owned by a French bank group
- Reaches call-centre and in-store sales
- Handles scoring, collections and refunds itself
- Merchant is paid immediately
Where Pledg is a step down from Affirm
- French-language site
- No fees or country list published
- Consumer credit only
Standout against Affirm. The same French bank group that owns it also operates the Sofinco consumer credit brand.
Best for: B2B marketplaces and suppliers of industrial, building and food products.
Hokodo operates through three regulated entities: Hokodo Services Limited, authorised by the FCA, Hokodo SAS, an insurance intermediary on the French ORIAS register, and UAB Hokodo, an e-money institution licensed by the Bank of Lithuania. Against Affirm's single US set-up, that is a European and UK spread, but it also leaves open who signs your contract.
Terms run 30, 60 or 90 days, with trade accounts, instalments and a pay now plus pay later option in one checkout. Hokodo says its payments are insured through Lloyd's of London. The merchant pays only for the modules it switches on, but no prices are published.
What Hokodo does better than Affirm
- Insurance backing stated for payment risk
- Registered entities in three countries
- Modular, pay-for-what-you-use model
- Industry pages for marketplaces and suppliers
Where Hokodo is a step down from Affirm
- Unclear which entity signs merchant contracts
- No public pricing
- Business buyers only
Standout against Affirm. It says its credit is insured through Lloyd's of London instead of resting on its own balance sheet.
Best for: Mid-size and large retailers that want invoice payment with debt collection included.
Riverty's buyer terms name Riverty Bank S.A. in Luxembourg as the party offering its invoice and direct-debit methods. The roots go back to the finance arm of Bertelsmann's printing services, later Arvato Financial Solutions and AfterPay. Against Affirm, you get a bank in the euro area as counterparty and 32 European locations.
The range is wider than a checkout button: 14 and 30 day invoice, monthly invoice, fixed instalments, pay in 3 and direct debit, plus debt collection and factoring. Riverty also reaches merchants through partnerships with Mollie and Adyen. The business site cites over 7,000 retailers, a figure that is Riverty's own.
What Riverty does better than Affirm
- Counterparty is a named Luxembourg bank
- Invoice payment methods Affirm does not list
- Collections and factoring in the same group
- Reachable through Mollie and Adyen
Where Riverty is a step down from Affirm
- No published merchant fees
- Broad range means longer onboarding
- Several former brand names to untangle
Standout against Affirm. Unpaid invoices can stay inside one supplier from checkout to collection.
Best for: Merchants in Sweden, Finland and Norway that want invoice credit from a bank.
Walley is a brand of Norion Bank AB in Gothenburg, formerly Collector Bank AB, and the privacy notice names the bank as data controller. Against Affirm, the lender is a Swedish bank rather than a US partner, and the merchant sees Sweden, Finland and Norway in the country choices.
Merchants can switch on pay now, pay later and several instalment variants, next to Swish, Vipps and MobilePay. A B2B checkout is listed separately. The customer app lets shoppers move due dates after a return. Most of the site is in Swedish and no prices are shown.
What Walley does better than Affirm
- Swish, Vipps and MobilePay alongside credit
- Bank entity stated with organisation number
- B2B checkout available
- Shoppers can postpone or split in an app
Where Walley is a step down from Affirm
- Nordic coverage only
- Mostly Swedish-language pages
- No public pricing
Standout against Affirm. It bundles Swish, Vipps and MobilePay with bank-run credit in a single checkout.
Best for: UK retailers whose higher-ticket customers are declined by other lenders.
Social Money Ltd, trading as Payl8r, is registered in England and authorised by the FCA. It lends £50 to £3,000 over 3 to 24 months, so it is regulated lending rather than an interest-free split. Compared with Affirm, it is a UK-only option and says nothing about the euro area.
Its second-line role is the distinctive part: it takes applications that another lender has declined, using Open Banking affordability checks and counter offers. A merchant becomes an introducer appointed representative, which avoids its own credit licence, and is paid within one business day. The pricing page was not read.
What Payl8r does better than Affirm
- Accepts applicants other lenders decline
- One-business-day payout stated
- Merchant needs no credit licence of its own
Where Payl8r is a step down from Affirm
- UK merchants only
- Orders capped at £3,000
- Shoppers take regulated loans, not interest-free splits
Standout against Affirm. It lends to shoppers that another lender has already turned down.
Best for: UK retailers who want to pay only when a Zilch customer completes a purchase.
Zilch Technology Limited is a London company founded in 2018 and authorised by the FCA. Unlike Affirm's checkout module, it gives shoppers a Visa digital or physical card, so it works wherever Visa is accepted, and the retailer relationship rests on affiliate-style tracking. Its retailer page names QVC, Iceland and Morrisons as partners.
Retailers pay on completed purchases, with no rates published, and the page says no integration is needed. Shoppers choose pay now, pay in 4 over 6 weeks or pay over 3 months, with paid plans at £2.99 and £4.99 a month. Credit is for UK residents only.
What Zilch does better than Affirm
- Retailer pays only on completed purchases
- Works at any shop accepting Visa
- Brings its own customer base to retailers
Where Zilch is a step down from Affirm
- UK residents only
- Little control over the checkout journey
- Retailer rates not published
Standout against Affirm. The retailer pays per purchase and needs no checkout integration.
What actually breaks when you switch
Switching from Affirm is easiest when you were not selling to European shoppers through it in the first place. If you were, the pain points are the contract and the data. None of the twelve providers on this page describes a migration tool from Affirm, so open orders and instalment plans stay with Affirm until they run out, and you run both in parallel for months.
Integration effort differs. Alma, Scalapay and SeQura publish modules, an API and a sandbox. Billie and Riverty can arrive through Stripe, Adyen or Mollie. Payl8r needs a signed introducer agreement and compliance training before go-live. Pricing is the other surprise: apart from Alma, every provider needs a sales conversation, so build that time into the plan before you promise a launch date.
Can a European webshop simply keep using Affirm?
Only if its shoppers sit in one of the regions Affirm lists, which are the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The pair of pages read for this comparison show no euro-area region. A shop with a mixed audience could in theory keep Affirm for its American or British visitors and add a European provider for the rest.
For the European part, the practical test is whether the provider approves your shoppers' own cards and bank accounts and has a regulated entity in their country. Alma checks cards issued in Europe, SeQura carries a Spain, France, Italy and Portugal selector, and Walley offers Sweden, Finland and Norway.
Which provider should a business-to-business seller look at first?
Start with the four B2B tools: Mondu, Billie, Two and Hokodo. Mondu offers invoice terms of 30 to 90 days, instalments over 3, 6 or 12 months and a trade account under a Dutch e-money licence. Billie is BaFin-supervised and pays the seller up front. Two adds instalments beyond 36 months, and Hokodo adds 30, 60 and 90 day terms with insurance cover stated on its site.
None of the four publishes fees, so the comparison happens in a sales call. Ask each which of its legal entities signs the merchant contract. That question matters most for Two and Hokodo, where the pages checked did not settle it.
Which one to pick
For consumer sales in the euro area, shortlist Alma, Scalapay and SeQura. Choose Alma if you want a public price table and sell in France or Benelux, Scalapay if you sell in Italy and want one contract across nine countries, and SeQura for larger baskets and courses in southern Europe. Riverty fits a bigger retailer that wants invoice payment and collections in one group, and Walley and Pledg cover Nordic and French niches.
For business buyers, the choice is between Mondu, Billie, Two and Hokodo. Billie suits a German shop running Stripe, Adyen or Mollie, Mondu offers the Dutch licence and the override on declined orders, Two brings guest credit and very long plans, and Hokodo brings insurance-backed terms. Payl8r and Zilch are for UK merchants only. Whatever you pick, ask which entity signs your contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the shopper. For consumers in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany or Portugal, Alma is the one with published merchant fees, and Scalapay and SeQura cover pay in 3 or 4 and longer plans. For business buyers, Mondu, Billie, Two and Hokodo offer invoice terms. For the Nordics, Walley is run by a Swedish bank. No single tool covers every case.
The shopper regions named in the sources read for this comparison are the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. No EU country appears in that list. The statement comes from Affirm's own pages as seen in October 2026, so confirm the current list with Affirm before you rule it out for a specific country.
Alma states that the shop is paid in full whether or not the customer honours the instalments. Scalapay, Pledg, Billie, Two and Mondu also describe up-front payout to the seller. Payl8r states a payout within one business day. Zilch pays on completed purchases. Riverty, Walley and SeQura do not state the payout terms on the pages read.
Yes, but they are UK companies, not European ones in the EU sense. Payl8r is FCA-authorised and lends £50 to £3,000 over 3 to 24 months, and Zilch is an FCA-authorised wallet and Visa card. Hokodo and Two have UK entities for B2B. The UK holds an adequacy decision, so data can flow from the EU, but these firms sit outside the EEA.
Only Alma does, in a table on its pricing page. Mondu, Scalapay, SeQura, Billie, Two, Pledg, Hokodo, Riverty, Walley and Payl8r keep merchant pricing behind a contact form or a negotiation. Zilch states that retailers pay on purchases but gives no rate. Budget a sales conversation for every provider except Alma.
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