Payments company Splitit has signed up its first Australian retailer, with an agreement to provide its instalment payment service to online retailer Kogan.Splitit's services allows consumers to pay for purchases with an existing debit or credit card account, splitting the purchase amount into a series of monthly payments. The consumer pays no interest or fees.The company was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in January but has its headquarters in New York and to date has done all its business offshore.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.In February Splitit hired Andrew Pipolo, the former managing director of PayPal Australia, to head its business in Australia and Asia Pacific.According to the company's prospectus: "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 Kindom, merchants can opt to receive upfront payment of the full purchase price in exchange for the purchase of the merchant's receivables.