Buy Now Pay Later embraces crypto and blockchain

As reported by Reuters: “Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) firms have created one of the fastest-growing segments in consumer finance, with transaction volumes hitting $120 billion in 2021 up from just $33 billion in 2019, according to GlobalData.” However, stiff competition, rising interest rates and weaker consumer spending are creating challenging headwinds for BNPL. Klarna, which was Europe’s biggest FinTech firm has seen profits fall and is now laying off staff as it faces bad debts and strong competition from firms such as Afterpay. BNPL has effectively enabled consumers to have free credit by purchasing goods, agreeing to pay for them over the following 3 or 4 months, but paying no interest. Mercator Advisory Group reports that more than 50% of US consumers have used a BNPL option in the past 12 to 14 months. Juniper research estimates that by 2026, the BNPL sector could be worth more than $1trillion with the number of users growing from 340 million to over 1.5billion. Even Apple is off…