BrewDog makes BNPL move with Clearpay tie up
UK-based brewery and pub chain, BrewDog, has signed on with buy now, pay later venture Clearpay.
The company is launching exclusively with an advent calendar, offering shoppers the option to pay in four interest free instalments.
Clearpay recently reached two million active customers in the UK.
The venture, which is known as Afterpay outside the UK and Europe, made the announcement as it launched a Pay Better campaign which aimed to “shine a light on the ways consumers can reclaim control of their financial lives and not just pay later, but pay better”.
Citizens Advice research
One in ten shoppers who use buy now pay later have been chased by debt collectors, Citizens Advice claimed last week.
According to its research, these people were charged £39 million in late fees in the past year.
Of those who were referred to a debt collector for missed payments, 96% experienced a negative consequence.
They reported at least one of the following: sleepless nights; ignoring texts, emails and letters in case they were about debts; avoiding answering the door; borrowing money to repay the debt; or their mental health getting worse.
Yet the charity found that not one of the BNPL checkouts on leading retailers’ websites warned people they could be referred to debt collectors for missed payments. Instead this was only flagged in the T&Cs on a separate page, if at all.
Citizens Advice conducted mystery shopping at 100 leading retailers and found 38 offered BNPL, with 22 offering more than two options, meaning there were a total of 74 BNPL checkouts.
Out of those offering BNPL, only 11% warned shoppers they were taking out a credit agreement, the remaining 89% put this information in the small print or T&Cs.
Citizens Advice asked the BNPL firms featured in the research if they ever referred customers to debt collectors.
Klarna, Clearpay, Laybuy and Openpay confirmed they do this as a last resort. Splitit said it doesn’t. PayPal refused to comment.
Citizens Advice says it is s calling on the Treasury to urgently regulate this space as it “fears shoppers have been left unprotected and ill-informed during the rapid expansion of the sector”.
