Company Announcements

Expands into consumer electronics, health and fitness, virtual learning, and home improvement verticals

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 11, 2021-- Citizens today announced that it has further expanded the reach of its national point-of-sale offering for merchants, which it has renamed Citizens Pay to reflect its proven and straightforward approach to providing businesses with budget-friendly payment options for customers who want a more transparent and predictable way to finance purchases.

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“Our platform has demonstrated the ability to drive impressive sales growth with a best-in-class customer experience,” said Andrew Rostami, president of Citizens Pay. “Citizens Pay helps merchants boost sales and increase consumer loyalty by enabling their customers to make repeat purchases and upgrades in a financially responsible way.”

Citizens Pay provides consumers a better way to finance their large purchases, with easy-to-understand, low fixed monthly payments through a virtual line of credit that can be used for repeat purchases without a new credit application or managing multiple loans. Retailers can benefit from immediate sales and average order value increases by taking advantage of the platform’s best-in-class digital and in-store customer experiences, combined with comprehensive product and financing options for consumers across the credit spectrum. Citizens Pay is easy for merchants to integrate and available to launch in a matter of days while being scalable for the largest and most complex merchants.

Citizens Pay also offers the ability for manufacturers to embed financing into their products as a “Product as a Service”, offered through multiple retailers. This state-of-the art capability was initially launched by Citizens in partnership with Microsoft for the sale of Xbox All Access using integrated Citizens financing at retailers such as Target, Best Buy, WalMart, and GameStop.

In addition to existing partnerships with major consumer electronics brands and retailers, Citizens is focused on further expansion into other retail verticals. Citizens Pay has expanded to:

• Retailers in health and fitness, including Horizon Fitness, a subsidiary of Johnson Health Tech, Echelon Fitness, and FitNation, an Echelon subsidiary.
• Home improvement contractors, in a partnership with Arlington Financial.
• Educational products and services with Wiley Efficient Learning, a company offering exam preparation products across nine disciplines including accounting, finance, and general business.

“The point-of-sale lending space is a high-growth area and attracts customers that exhibit strong credit performance,” added Rostami. “We have invested consistently over time to deliver a state-of-the art payment model and look forward to further accelerating its adoption with Citizens Pay.”

Citizens is a leader in point of sale financing and since the inception of this program over $6.4 billion in loans have been originated and the company has served more than 5 million accounts. The loans in this program aren’t securitized which allows Citizens to maintain a high-quality customer experience as it acquires customers nationally.

About Citizens Financial Group, Inc .

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $179.2 billion in assets as of September 30, 2020. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. Citizens helps its customers reach their potential by listening to them and by understanding their needs in order to offer tailored advice, ideas and solutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens provides an integrated experience that includes mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 2,700 ATMs and approximately 1,000 branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Consumer Banking products and services include a full range of banking, lending, savings, wealth management and small business offerings. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers a broad complement of financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as loan syndication, corporate finance, merger and acquisition, and debt and equity capital markets capabilities. More information is available at www.citizensbank.com or visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

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Rory Sheehan
781-655-3931
Rory.P.Sheehan@citizensbank.com

Source: Citizens Financial Group, Inc.