Blog Posts

The COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst that buy now, pay later (BNPL) needed to really take off. Exploding e-commerce usage and a need to manage cash flow drove triple-digit growth in installment payments during 2020, with 2021 on track to see even greater growth in the space. As usage grows, so does the number of players in the space, and consolidation is inevitable. I keep a running list of BNPL providers as they pop up in the news or in client discussions, and even excluding bank providers and the largest players like Affirm and Klarna, the current list runs to 35 and is far from comprehensive. Thus, the Square acquisition of Afterpay was not so much a surprise as a step in the direction of starting to rationalize this exploding space.