Citi Australia has joined the rush of banks and other traditional players to grab a slice of the burgeoning instalment payments market.Following recent announcements from Commonwealth Bank and Visa Inc flagging plans to take on Buy Now Pay Later(BNPL) pioneers Afterpay and Zip, Citi yesterday entered the instalments payments market in partnership with online retailer, Kogan.com.Citi, which has built a significant credit cards business in Australia, is under pressure to develop new business models to counter the relative decline of credit cards against other payments instruments in the Australian marketplace.In 2018, the value of Citi's lending through credit cards declined by 3 per cent. While expansion of white label agreements for cards distributed by other ADIs is a key plank in the strategy, Citi is also hoping to rebuild market share through deals with big retailers such as Kogan.Under the arrangement, Citi will add an instalment repayment option for credit cardholders who make purchases on the Kogan site.The service, which is only available to Citi cardholders, allows shoppers to pay for goods in instalments for up to 24 months."The buy now pay later sector has seen rapid growth, increasing five-fold in the last two years alone, according to data from ASIC," said Citi's head of cards and loans, Choong Yu Lum."This highlights that consumers want more ways to manage their payments, and we're proud to be the first bank in Australia to enter this sector."While the new service is designed to retain cardholders, Citi is also aiming to attract new customers by offering cashback offers for shopping at Kogan.com.Visa and CBA are eyeing entries into instalment payments next year.CBA chief Matt Comyn announced earlier this month that his bank had invested A$100 million in Swedish BNPL specialist, Klarna.Under the deal CBA will become Klarna's exclusive bank partner in Australia and New Zealand.Visa announced in early July that it had begun a pilot with selected merchants around the world to offer a BNPL service to holder of its credit cards.A spokesperson for Visa's Australian operation said the service was likely to be available in the local market sometime next year."Visa's instalment solution is in pilot in select countries and scheduled to be available globally in 2020, with exact market timings yet to be determined," the spokesperson said.Internal research published by Visa earlier this year measured the global BNPL market at $1.2 trillion in 2017 and growing at annual rate of 15 per cent.The growth of BNPL has hacked into market share of credit cards in a swathe of countries including Brazil where around half of all credit payment volume is now attributable to instalment providers.