The Financial Technology Association (FTA) submitted a comment letter in response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s market monitoring inquiry into Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) providers. FTA represents several leading providers of BNPL, including Afterpay, Figure, Klarna, Sezzle, and Zip.
The letter reads in part:
“A broad range of consumers prefer BNPL payment solutions as a responsible, low risk, and low cost option for making consumer purchases. A 2020 survey of BNPL users found that more than 75 percent of consumers using a BNPL payment solution had funds available to cover the full purchase price of the target item at the time of the transaction. In fact, the majority of users had 5 times the total purchase amount in their account at the time of using the BNPL payment option.”
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“BNPL products are subject to key consumer protection regulations and FTA members are committed to informing regulatory frameworks that safeguard consumers. Regardless of the BNPL offering, all BNPL products are subject to key consumer protection laws and regulations, including around anti-money laundering, fair lending, credit reporting, debt collection, privacy, fair treatment of customers, and electronic fund transfers. They also are subject to similar state consumer protection laws.”