McKinsey&Company
Four trends in BNPL
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Roundabout refunds. It’s simple to use buy now, pay later (BNPL) companies to purchase items. Getting a refund, though, can be complicated. Consumers say that after making a return, months can pass before getting the money back, if the funds are paid back at all. Angry shoppers are making their feelings known on social media at a time when BNPL companies are facing their own challenges. Higher interest rates make it costlier for the companies to borrow money, and late payments are also on the rise. [WSJ] |
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Borrowing is big. Consumer borrowing is soaring in the US. In April 2022, total outstanding credit hit $4.5 trillion, a $38.1 billion increase from March, according to government data. So far, US consumers haven’t let rising prices slow down spending, but they are relying on credit cards and dipping into savings to buy basic necessities as well as nonessential goods. From January to March, US consumers opened a record number of credit-card accounts, while the savings rate fell to its lowest point in more than a decade. [Bloomberg] |
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Popular in payments. US consumers love using credit cards. Credit cards accounted for 37% of purchases by dollar value in 2021, with transaction volumes reaching $49 trillion that same year. But the rapid rise of point-of-sale (POS) financing, which combines installment lending with the convenience of making card payments, may be undermining the profitable growth of credit-card businesses. By 2025, US credit-card companies could lose up to 15% of incremental profits to POS borrowing, a simulation run by McKinsey found.
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Buy now, pay later. Consumers are choosing BNPL for many reasons, including low APR (starting at 0% in some cases), predictable payments, and the ability to use a payment method that works seamlessly with shopping apps. The popularity of BNPL could erode credit-card purchase volumes: nearly 40% of people who used BNPL to make a purchase said that they would otherwise have paid with a credit card, McKinsey research reveals. See four important trends in BNPL and thoughtful ways to respond.
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| — Edited by Belinda Yu |
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