Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) continues to make inroads as a growing option for consumers looking for more flexibility in making online payments. Building on a partnership with BNPL provider Affirm earlier this summer, online payment technology provider Stripe announced a similar deal in the U.K. with Clearpay (known as Afterpay outside Europe). British merchants that use Stripe to enable online payment acceptance can now offer their customers the capability of paying for e-commerce purchases in installments through Clearpay.
“The integration across platforms furthers our goal to give sellers of all sizes omnichannel tools that help them to grow by meeting consumer shopping habits, whatever and wherever they are,” said Alyssa Henry, head of Square. “Clearpay provides our ecosystem with a new tool beyond an alternative payment method; it enables an omnichannel commerce solution that can offer true value to our sellers.”
While BNPL has achieved astonishing popularity in the short time it has been widely available—especially during Covid lockdowns when e-commerce exploded but many people were out of work—fraudsters have used its quick growth as an opportunity.
A recent report from data aggregator and credit bureau Experian predicted that 2022 would see a sharp rise in fraud targeting BNPL transactions, especially identity theft and synthetic identity fraud. Card Not Present also reported last year on a different kind of attack targeting merchants that were early adopters of BNPL.
