New research has warned that “shop now, pay later” schemes are affecting shoppers’ credit scores, casting fresh concerns about the credit model popular among millennials.
The survey, conducted in the UK by comparethemarket.com, reveals that 22% of those surveyed say they’ve had their credit scores negatively impacted from “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) schemes, which allows shoppers to delay or spread the cost of a purchase at thousands of retailers.
The study calculates that over 2m UK shoppers could have seen their credit scores drop, with a third of UK 25 to 34-year-olds having used BNPL schemes over the past year.
Some of Europe’s largest BNPL players include Klarna — the continent’s highest-valued private fintech at $5.5bn —Clearpay and Payl8er. At the last count, Swedish fintech Klarna boasted 70m users, concentrated in the Nordics and Germany, although the UK is quickly becoming one of its largest markets, with over 5m British customers.
“Buy Now, Pay Later” providers have faced public criticism in recent months for failing to warn its young users about the dangers of opening credit. Indeed, 41% of those surveyed by comparethemarket.com said they were unaware that ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes could affect their credit score.
One issue is that when companies conduct a hard credit check, users’ credit score automatically drops if they are denied. Credit ratings are also damaged when customers default on their payments, although Klarna claims this only happens in a small percentage of cases. Klarna also largely uses soft credit checks, which in theory limit the impact on their users’ ratings.
The company told Sifted that less than 0.5% of Klarna UK customers have had their credit score impacted as a consequence of missing payments, saying other “pay later” providers may be to blame for the survey’s “surprise” results.
Still, some argue that the service is also encouraging millennials to up their spending on sites like ASOS, Boohoo, Nasty Gal and PrettyLittleThing. “Klarna is, in my mind, a real Trojan horse for millennials’ finances. It’s coming at a time when fast-shopping has just gone to a new level,” writes Iona Bain, founder of the Young Money Blog.
Klarna sells itself to online retailers with the promise of a 20% increase in the frequency of purchases.
Last year, Klarna was also embroiled in a public spat with Swedish politician Per Bolund, who said customers should not be fooled into “payment paths that cost more”, promising to give companies like Klarna a “hard time”.
Klarna hit back, arguing that lending credit to retail customers was nothing new. The company’s basic ‘pay later’ option does not cost customers more in itself, assuming they pay back on time.
BNPL companies are spreading internationally but will depend heavily on continued regulatory openness from host governments. Indeed, earlier this year, Klarna’s chief executive was called to a government council over cyber-security and ‘know your customer’ (KYC) concerns.
Klana is a fully licensed bank and makes most of its money from partnerships with over 170,000 retail partners.
This piece has been updated to include Klarna’s response.
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I’ve only used Klarna a couple times but never did anything to my credit score.
Depends which score your referring to. Most certainly will affect your ability to take a personal loan or mortgage.
I can’t see how using Klarna can negatively impact your credit score unless you miss, or are late on a payment!
Yep that would be true in Klarna’s case – they don’t seem to be responsible for the survey’s results. Still, they claim that can’t be said for the rest of the industry so it raises some red flags more broadly
When a lender checks your credit, its clear you that couldn’t afford to pay in full. You used Klarna to spread the cost and this indicates poor affordability which reduces your credit score.
I used Klarna to pay for an article. I changed my mind though before the article was sent. To get my money back from Klarna, required 5 weeks, as not only did they need a statement in paper form from the company that sold the article, saying that it wasn’t sent, but they have an email queue policy that forbids the reading of emails, before a certain amount of days has gone by, from their receiving!
EPIC
Hold on… are you saying it only negatively affects when you default or when they do a hard check which they aren’t doing? This isn’t very clear.
Sorry that wasn’t clear! Yes, in general, your score can be negatively affected in both cases BUT not for Klarna itself. Meaning they aren’t largely the ones at fault for this survey. I guess the headline hints there were questions for the firm, but they answer them pretty well. They agree it’s definitely a wider concern for the industry though
Using Klarna or any other form of short term credit will reduce your credit score. Data analysis on credit scores clearly shows that these customers are far more likely to default on credit agreements, than those who don’t use short term credit.
According to Experian my credit score plummeted a 143 points for using these, and just as I was getting my score up. I did not see anything telling me this would happen when I signed up.
Did you default?
Did you pay on time???
