PayPal co-founder Max Levchin has launched a mobile money company which aims to make it easier for online shoppers to complete purchases.
On its Web site, Affirm argues that the online checkout experience has not improved for shoppers in more than a decade, meaning merchants are left with countless abandoned carts.
The start-up is promising to help retailers turn more mobile shoppers into buyers through a quick and simple checkout process, requiring just a couple of taps of the customer's handset.
Affirm will use Facebook to authenticate customers at the checkout, Levchin told AllThingsD, before guaranteeing the merchant payment, for which it gets a fee.
Acting as a digital charge card, Affirm then gives the customers 30 days to settle the bill, although it does not charge them for this.
"You will essentially be putting a purchase on a digital tab, and we are going to make it work for us by looking at all available data to determine if you are someone who will pay it back," says Levchin.