• Bread, a fintech helping merchants offer buy now, pay later, just nabbed Citi's Jyoti Menon.
  • Menon led Citi's digital wallet and e-commerce strategy.
  • Bread, which was acquired by Alliance Data Services last year, is key to ADS' growth.

Bread, a fintech helping companies roll out their own buy now, pay later offerings, just poached a key member of Citi's strategy around digital wallets and e-commerce as the BNPL market heats up.  

Jyoti Menon was most recently director of digital wallets and e-commerce, bill pay, and funding at Citi, overseeing the bank's relationships with digital wallets including Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. 

At Bread, Menon will head up digital product and analytics for the white-label BNPL player.

Prior to Citi, Menon spent nearly seven years at American Express, focusing on the commercial card, corporate payments, and the cardmember experience. 

"Her breadth of experience in global product development, leadership, and strategic thinking made her an excellent fit for our innovative Bread team," Dashon Williford, SVP for digital strategy and experience at Alliance Data Services, Bread's parent company, told Insider via email.

Williford also joined Bread from Citi, where he was digital head of the bank's loyalty programs, in December 2020. And in August, Malick Ndiaye, a VP and digital product manager at Citi, joined Bread as a senior product manager, according to LinkedIn.

A spokesperson for Citi did not immediately respond to a request for comment about who will fill Menon's role.

Bread was acquired by Alliance Data Services, a co-branded card player, in October 2020. At the time, Bread had over 400 clients using its white-labeled buy now, pay later tech.

Buy now, pay later is the fastest growing area in payments, expected to account for 4% of all transactions globally by 2024, according to FIS. While BNPL fintechs like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna compete for merchant contracts, players like Bread and Barclays enable merchants the ability to offer the financing themselves. 

ADS is undergoing something of a transformation as co-branded retail cards wane in popularity, and Bread is a key part of its three-year plan. ADS also hired Perry Beberman, a 16-year Bank of America veteran, as CFO in July.

In June, Bread partnered with infrastructure giant Fiserv, which it hopes will help it reach more merchants. It also announced a partnership with Wayfair, who will use Bread's tech to offer point-of-sale financing.

A picture of a switch and lightbulb
Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know.
Subscribe to push notifications