dLocal has expanded BNPL Fuse, its BNPL infrastructure, adding eligibility screening, data enrichment, and checkout optimisation for merchants in emerging markets.
The Uruguay-based payments platform, listed on the Nasdaq, has introduced several capabilities to the existing infrastructure. The updated solution includes pre-checkout eligibility screening, payer data enrichment to improve approval rates across the provider network, and checkout optimisation designed to reduce friction at the point of payment.
Two further features extend the offering: centralised refund orchestration, which enables a single refund policy across all providers and markets, and a subscription revenue tool that allows merchants offering annual plans to replace 12 monthly billing events with a single BNPL-financed approval. The latter eliminates involuntary churn and allows merchants to capture full contract value at the point of sale.
Addressing a structural gap in payment access
According to the official press release, the expansion targets a well-documented structural challenge in emerging markets: limited access to credit cards and, consequently, to flexible payment options at checkout. In South Africa, 90.3% of consumers have no access to a credit card, in Latin America, that figure stands at approximately 60%. Moreover, when flexible payment options are absent at checkout, up to 66% of potential buyers do not complete a purchase.
For merchants, the previous model for deploying BNPL across these markets required separate contracts, integrations, and compliance processes for each provider in each market. BNPL Fuse operates through a single API, with dLocal managing licensing, compliance, and settlement locally. The product is structured around fixed-term instalment financing with repayment schedules set upfront by local providers, who also manage the credit relationship, while merchants receive full payment upfront.
New providers now live on the network include Didi in Mexico and Addi in Colombia, with Aplazo and Venti set to follow. Current market coverage includes Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia, with Colombia, Chile, and the UAE in the pipeline.
Early performance data
In South Africa, average BNPL transaction values run between 60% and 330% higher than card transactions across product categories, with a 61.4% uplift recorded in fast fashion and 328% in high-volume marketplace verticals. Between 52% and 81% of BNPL buyers in that market had no prior card transaction with the same merchant, indicating incremental revenue that would not otherwise have been generated.
Checkout optimisation has also produced measurable results. Resolving multi-login friction on Android devices to a single step delivered a conversion rate increase of up to 144% for one live merchant integration.
Within months of launch in active markets, BNPL reached between 6.7% and 19.9% of total transaction volume for participating merchants.
Across the network, BNPL Fuse has grown at approximately 20% month-on-month over the past 12 months, reaching USD 18.9 million in processed volume in March 2026.
The company also noted that the infrastructure was originally designed to address access barriers in these markets and has now been developed further to address conversion performance, with each transaction contributing to an intelligence layer intended to improve approval rates over time.
