dLocal is expanding BNPL Fuse, its buy now, pay later infrastructure, as global merchants look for ways to reach buyers in emerging markets where credit cards cover only part of the population.
Duncan Steblyna, senior vice president of product at dLocal, told Fintechly that BNPL plays a different role in emerging markets than it has in the US and UK.
“Beyond conversion, the biggest driver we’re seeing is access,” Steblyna said. “In many of our markets, traditional credit cards reach a small slice of the population, but demand for higher-ticket digital purchases is exploding.”
He said BNPL can act as “an embedded financing layer” that works with payment methods customers already use, rather than requiring a formal credit line or international card.
The expanded BNPL Fuse adds eligibility screening before checkout, payer data enrichment to improve approval rates across the provider network, and checkout optimisation designed to reduce failed or abandoned payments.
The product is aimed at global merchants operating across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where dLocal argues flexible financing can address a structural checkout problem rather than simply add another payment option.
BNPL as access infrastructure
In mature markets, BNPL has often been used as a conversion tool layered on top of existing card access. In emerging markets, dLocal says it can play a broader role because many consumers still lack access to traditional credit.
The company said 90.3% of consumers in South Africa have no access to a credit card. In Latin America, the figure is around 60%. For merchants, that can turn payment access into a barrier at checkout, particularly for higher-value digital purchases, subscriptions and marketplace transactions.
“Structurally, that’s quite different from mature markets,” Steblyna said. “In the US or UK, BNPL was layered on top of a population that already had credit cards. It was a checkout optimisation. Here, it’s solving a fundamentally different problem.”
BNPL Fuse gives merchants access to local BNPL providers through one API, with the company handling licensing, compliance and settlement across each market. The model is designed to remove the need for separate contracts, integrations and compliance processes with each provider in each country.
The product also adds centralised refund orchestration, allowing merchants to apply one refund policy across providers and markets. A subscription revenue feature allows merchants selling annual plans to replace 12 monthly billing events with a single BNPL-financed approval.
Local providers across emerging markets
BNPL Fuse currently covers Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, with Colombia, Chile and the UAE in the pipeline. New providers now live include Didi in Mexico and Addi in Colombia, with Aplazo and Venti expected to come to market shortly.
According to dLocal, BNPL through Fuse is structured as fixed-term instalment financing, with repayment schedules set upfront by local providers. The providers manage the credit relationship with the buyer, while merchants receive full payment upfront.
Steblyna says cash-flow smoothing is another driver for both consumers and merchants.
“For end users in markets with less predictable income cycles, BNPL helps align payments with irregular income flows; for merchants, it can turn lumpy, discretionary spending into more predictable, recurring demand without taking credit risk onto their own balance sheet,” he said.
South Africa points to incremental demand
dLocal points to South Africa as an example of how BNPL can reach buyers outside card-based checkout.
The company said BNPL ticket sizes in South Africa are 60% to 330% higher than card transactions across categories, including a 61.4% uplift in fast fashion and a 328% uplift in high-volume marketplace verticals.
It also said between 52% and 81% of BNPL buyers in South Africa had no previous card transaction with the same merchant. For dLocal, that suggests BNPL is bringing incremental buyers into the checkout rather than simply moving existing card users to a different payment method.
Checkout design has also affected conversion. dLocal said it delivered a conversion rate increase of up to 144% for one live merchant integration by reducing multi-login friction on Android devices to a single step.
Within months of launch, BNPL reached between 6.7% and 19.9% of total transaction volume for merchants in South Africa, according to the company.
Globally, BNPL Fuse has grown by around 20% month on month over the past 12 months, reaching US$18.9 million in processed volume in March 2026.
Affordability and underwriting
The expansion comes as BNPL remains under regulatory scrutiny in several markets, with policymakers paying closer attention to affordability checks, repayment transparency and consumer debt.
Steblyna said emerging market BNPL needs to reflect local payment behaviour, local regulation and the needs of new-to-credit customers.
“In emerging markets, BNPL is much closer to infrastructure than add-on,” he said. “It fills a genuine gap in access to affordable, short-term financing, and it has to be designed around local realities: instant bank transfers and wallets instead of cards, tighter regulatory scrutiny around over-indebtedness, and much more emphasis on responsible underwriting for new-to-credit customers.”
For global merchants, the appeal is access to more eligible buyers, higher approval rates and fewer abandoned transactions in markets where cards reach only part of the population. The pressure on providers will be to scale that access while keeping affordability checks, repayment clarity and local compliance built into the model.
