Harvard fellow: CFPB’s ‘buy now, pay later’ regulation isn’t enough—nothing ‘substantively changes’

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declared in May that buy now, pay later customers should have the same federal protections as users of credit cards.

However, Marshall Lux, a fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School who studies BNPL, says the government’s latest guidance is already a few steps behind.

“What substantively changes? Nothing really,” he said.

The new regulation means that the industry — currently dominated by fintech firms like Affirm, Klarna and PayPal — must make refunds for returned products or canceled services, investigate merchant disputes pause payments during those probes and provide bills with fee disclosures.

 

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