Payments company Splitit has hired Andrew Pipolo, the former managing director of PayPal Australia, to head its business in Australia and Asia Pacific.Splitit, which was listed on the ASX in January, is headquartered in New York, has an office in London and a research and development centre in Israel.Pipolo will be based in Sydney and will lead the establishment of the business in the region. He ran PayPal's operation here from 2004 to 2009, when he was appointed managing director of PayPal Japan.Splitit offers merchants a payment processing facility, which it claims "reduces cart abandonment".It offers consumers a facility to "buy now and pay later" by using an existing credit card without incurring interest or fees.According to the company's prospects: "The customer may split the payment of his or her purchase into monthly instalments with no interest, fee or credit application, based on his or her existing credit or debit card."The Splitit Payment Platform operates as an intermediate technology layer between a merchant's platform and its existing payment gateway, being an e-service that runs payment transactions for a merchant."Under funding arrangements with credit providers in the United States and the United Kingdom, merchants can opt to receive upfront payment of the full purchase price in exchange for the purchase of the merchant's receivables.The payment platform was launched in 2016 and since then the company has formed partnerships with 310 merchants in 25 countries. Splitit earns transaction fees from merchants.The company is still in start-up mode. It earned revenue of A$272,000 in 2017/18 and made a loss of $1.2 million.