Afterpay’s move into hairdressers, restaurants and butchers. Consumers are at a “real risk of harm” – says Consumer Action Law Centre.
Afterpay has announced its moving into even more services such as restaurants, butchers and hairdressers as it targets “bricks and mortar” retailers, but consumer advocates have warned its latest offering is “dangerous”.
US company Block, which purchased Afterpay last August for a whopping $39 billion, said it was offering the payment option of four fortnightly instalments to customers who shop at millions of its retailers both in Australia and the US.
The move will allow retailers to accept buy now, pay later payments (BNPL) in-store, with a customer simply tapping to pay using a mobile wallet loaded with their virtual Afterpay card.
But Consumer Action Law Centre chief executive Gerard Brody said consumers were at “real risk of harm” using BNPL providers.
“I think it becoming such a ubiquitous and widespread product – everywhere we turn there is buy now, pay later – and it is really concerning that these providers like Afterpay aren’t subject to the same safeguards as other financial products,” he told news.com.au.
“It definitely has the potential to send users into more debt – credit is a pretty dangerous product and that’s why have safeguards are in place. People shouldn’t be using credit for everyday expenses.”
Mr Brody said buy now, pay later providers need to be regulated like other financial products such as credit cards and loans.
“It’s important any lender should be ensuring those repayments are affordable and the product is suitable to the consumers and simply Afterpay isn’t required to comply with the same law that other lenders have to,” he said.
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As of December 31, 2021, Afterpay is offered by more than 122,000 of the world’s favorite retailers and more than 19 million active customers have adopted the service. Afterpay is currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain, where it is known as Clearpay.
Anders Olofsson – former Head of Payments Finastra
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
