Meshfree methods based on radial basis function (RBF) approximation are becoming widely used for solving PDE problems. They are flexible with respect to the problem geometry and highly accurate. A disadvantage of these methods is that the linear system to be solved becomes dense for globally supported RBFs. A remedy is to introduce localisation techniques such as partition of unity. RBF partition of unity methods (RBF–PUM) allow for a significant sparsification of the linear system and lower the computational effort. In this work we apply a global RBF method as well as RBF–PUM to problems in option pricing. We consider one- and two-dimensional vanilla options. In order to price American options we employ a penalty approach. A penalty term, suitable for American multi-asset call options, has been designed. RBF–PUM is shown to be competitive compared with a finite difference method and a global RBF method. It is as accurate as the global RBF method, but significantly faster. The results for RBF–PUM look promising for extension to higher-dimensional problems.