20 September 2022
The Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau (CFPB) revealed a report providing key insights on the Purchase Now, Pay Later (BNPL) business. The next are 10 notable factors from the examine.
1. The 5 corporations surveyed within the report originated 180 million loans totaling over US$24 billion in 2021, a close to tenfold enhance from 2019.
2. Attire and wonder retailers, who had mixed to account for 80.1% of originations in 2019, solely accounted for 58.6% of originations in 2021.
3. Mortgage approval charges are rising: 73% of candidates have been authorized for credit score in 2021, up from 69% in 2020.
4. Late charges have gotten extra widespread: 10.5% of distinctive customers have been charged a minimum of one late charge in 2021, up from 7.8% in 2020.
5. Extra purchases are ending in returns: 13.7% of particular person loans in 2021 had a minimum of some portion of the order that was returned, up from 12.2% in 2020.
6. Lenders’ revenue margins are shrinking: Margins in 2021 have been 1.01% of the overall quantity of mortgage originated, down from 1.27% in 2020.
7. Inconsistent shopper protections: These embody a scarcity of standardised cost-of-credit disclosures, minimal dispute decision rights, a pressured opt-in to autopay, and a number of late charges on the identical missed fee.
8. Information harvesting and monetisation: Many BNPL lenders are shifting their enterprise fashions towards proprietary app utilization, which permits them to construct a useful digital profile of every person’s buying preferences and behavior.
9. Debt accumulation and overextension: As a result of most BNPL lenders don’t presently furnish information to the foremost credit score reporting corporations, all lenders are unaware of the borrower’s present liabilities when making a call to originate new loans.
10. Uneven regulation throughout states: Some states contemplate BNPL to be shopper credit score and require state licensing or compliance with state shopper credit score legal guidelines, whereas different states don’t require licensing or registration for BNPL merchandise with no curiosity or finance expenses.
Commenting on the discharge of the report, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra mentioned,
“I consider that Purchase Now, Pay Later can develop and serve shoppers effectively if we will collectively tackle a few of these gaps.
If Purchase Now, Pay Later lenders incorporate the protections and protocols that we observe in different monetary merchandise, this is able to go a great distance to make sure that there’s wholesome competitors the place shoppers have a baseline stage of protections.”
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