What's Behind the Boom in Buy Now Pay Later

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

News, Investing, Business, News Commentary, Business News

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Buy Now Pay Later is everywhere nowadays. Companies like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have brought installment payments into everyday life, while big banks and tech firms also now racing into the space. With the market growing so rapidly, there are obvious concerns over whether BNPL is adding a new layer of 'hidden leverage' to the economy, giving online shoppers an alternative to more traditional financing like credit cards and bank loans. Data about BNPL usage is notoriously limited, and BNPL firms have so far resisted sharing information. In this episode, we speak with Julie Margetta Morgan, formerly at the CFPB and now president of The Century Foundation, about what's driving the BNPL market, how BNPL companies make money, and the macroeconomic impacts of the BNPL boom.

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1:00.0	Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News. News Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
1:21.6	I'm Tracy Alloway.
1:22.9	And I'm Joe Wisenthall.
1:24.3	Joe, I have a confession to make.
1:26.0	Yeah.
1:26.8	I do a lot of online shopping.
1:48.9	Like a lot. Really? More than is healthy, probably. More than I realized from looking over your shoulder in the office and asking you what you're looking up. Because I do do that and you never like it, but I still do it. No, because sometimes I am in fact shopping online in the office. But a few years ago, I noticed a phenomenon, a change when it came to online shopping.
1:49.8	You know what that was?
1:50.9	I can guess.
1:51.3	Yeah.
2:02.9	All right, all of a sudden, whenever I was checking out, you would get an offer a little button usually that would say, do you want to take a buy now, pay later option? And usually it's with a company like Klarna or a firm or something like that. They're everywhere now. So like I've
2:09.1	certainly seen all these buttons. I've never used it. I don't really know why I haven't.
2:13.7	Because like why shouldn't I spread out? Why shouldn't I? Like for real, like my understanding is that the
	...

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