The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services arouse a lot of concern among regulators in the United Kingdom. On 2 February, as announced in June last year, a long-expected consultation was launched to create a regulatory framework for the sector. The consultation will run for two months, and then the submitted answers will serve as a basis for a proposal for a legal act.
The list of proposals includes placing the BNPL firms under the supervision by the Financial Conduct Authority (the British equivalent of the KNF), the right of consumers to file complaints to the Financial Ombudsman against BNPL firms, and the requirement that all advertisements and promotions must comply with the rules for BNPL marketing.
The government announced in June last year that lenders would be required to check the loans they granted for accessibility to consumers, and the rules of financial promotion would be changed to ensure that the BNPL advertisements would be fair, clear and not misleading.
The public believes that the pace of the reform is too slow. According to a report of a firm dealing with personal finance, one in six (15%) British consumers owes money to BNPL service providers.