The Splitit Ltd (ASX: SPT) share price rocketed up to yearly highs of $1.915 during June, taking its market cap soaring to over $350 million. Its price of $1.12 at the end of June represents a monthly gain of 140% and was almost 450% up on its recent lows in March.
Since the end of June, Splitit's share price has continued to storm higher, sitting at $1.48 dollars at the time of writing. Shares of Splitit are up more than 193% for the year – a huge gain, particularly when compared to the 10.6% drop in the S&P/All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) over the same period.
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What was driving Splitit's share price gains in June?
The increase in the Splitit share price follows a number of other well-known buy now, pay later (BNPL) shares that have been storming to new highs this year. However, it was the news that Splitit had partnered with global payments company Mastercard Inc (NYSE: MA) in particular that sent the share price surging.
On 18 June, Splitit announced its partnership with Mastercard, which saw the payments company's share price increase a whopping 108% in one day. The agreement allows Splitit to integrate its instalment solution around the world by partnering with Mastercard. Splitit will be able to leverage Mastercard's network of partners though the multi-year deal.
In Splitit CEO Brad Paterson's words, the deal represents "a fantastic way to broaden the distribution of our solution, leveraging Mastercard's incredible global reach, and build out a range of instalment services."
Splitit and Mastercard will jointly develop instalment and related products, and there are plans to launch pilots across 3 markets ahead of a global rollout.
This announcement follows on from news in early March that Splitit had partnered with Mastercard's rival Visa.
Now what?
There is plenty of talk that the investor-popular BNPL shares may be in a bubble, with the combined market cap of these companies exceeding $20 billion yet none turning a profit as yet.
Despite this, the Splitit share price has been on a fantastic run of late and found itself up another 8.42% today to close the day at $1.48 per share.
