Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans are being used more and more to keep consumers afloat. We’ve discussed the irresponsible use of BNPL for things like DoorDash, and other “non-essentials”. These expenses are easily cut out of a consumer’s budget. When struggling consumers use these services to pay for essentials they run the risk of digging deeper and deeper holes of debt that they likely won’t recover from.
"Buy now, pay later services have been on the rise as more consumers look to short-term installment financing options to help them manage the rising costs of daily necessities, not just pay for discretionary purchases.
BNPL providers originated nearly $157 billion in consumer credit products in 2025, up from nearly $116 billion in 2024, according to Federal Reserve estimates.
Meanwhile, a new LendingTree survey shows that 44% of Americans expect to apply for a BNPL loan in the next six months, including 13% who expect to take out three or more in that timeframe. The site polled 2,000 consumers earlier in July."
And the risk to credit markets isn’t measured, nor understood.
“There are these risks in the economy that we aren’t really quantifying,” Weinberg said. “We have no clue how they’ll perform when things go down. Is buy now, pay later the kind of fuel that’s going to light off the next crisis, like the mortgage crisis? We have no clue.”