Alma

Alma is a French fintech that provides buy-now-pay-later style instalment and deferred payment products to merchants. Shoppers can split a purchase into 2, 3 or 4 instalments, defer payment by 15 or 30 days, or, subject to eligibility, spread payment over 5 to 12 instalments through an offer marketed as Alma Financing; a one-off contactless link payment product is also offered. Merchants are paid the full purchase amount upfront and Alma assumes collection, fraud and non-payment risk, so the transaction functions for the merchant like a cash payment.

The service is available across e-commerce checkouts, physical points of sale (via a payment link sent by SMS or through a payment terminal), and call-centre or in-home sales flows where a link is sent by email or SMS. Merchants receive a dashboard with more than 30 KPIs, refund handling, data and accounting exports, and account management support tiered by merchant revenue. A mobile app for managing payments is also offered.

Founding story

Alma was founded in 2017 by Louis Chatriot, who serves as CEO and was previously general manager of Stripe in Italy and studied at Ecole Polytechnique and Stanford, together with a co-founder.

Business model

Alma sells its instalment and deferred payment solutions to merchants, taking on the credit, fraud and collection risk and settling merchants upfront for each transaction.

Alma charges a per-transaction commission with no subscription, setup or hidden fees. Published rates include 3.60% excl. tax for payment in 2, 3 or 4 instalments and 4.20% excl. tax for Pay Later at D+15/D+30, with the option to share part of the fee with the buyer (customer fee from 0.71% excl. tax, merchant fee up to 2.89% or 3.49% excl. tax respectively). Rates may be adjusted for identified risk and are automatically increased for American Express or business cards. A standard offer applies up to €1M of merchant turnover and custom, volume-degressive pricing is offered above that threshold.

Traction

The company states it is trusted by 21,800 merchants across retail sectors in Europe, and elsewhere refers to over 25,000 brands. Average results reported among merchants as of June 2025 include up to +15% more conversions, +80% average order value uplift and a 90% approval rate for payment requests. An investor profile states Alma manages hundreds of millions of euros of transactions per year.

Latest developments

Alma has released a mobile app for merchants to manage payments, offers a Pay Later product at D+15/D+30, and operates a waiting list for its 5-to-12-instalment financing product, which is available only to merchants who already use payment in 2, 3 or 4 instalments.