BNPL Trends in the UK: Growth, Usage and Regulatory Challenges (UK Finance)

Summary

• BNPL went from negligible a decade ago to 8% of all online and physical POS payments in the UK, and Worldpay forecasts 9% by 2030.p.2
• 25% of UK adults used BNPL at least once in 2024, compared with 14% in 2023.p.2
• The share of users using BNPL monthly or more often was unchanged at 33%.p.2
• Among 55- to 64-year-olds, the proportion of BNPL users more than doubled from 10% in 2023 to 21% in 2024.p.3
• Clothes, jewellery and shoes made up 46% of BNPL purchases in 2024, ahead of domestic electrical equipment (13%) and non-electrical household goods (9%).p.5
• In 2024, 5% of BNPL users said they had incurred late payment fees, while 31% were concerned about debt problems from BNPL use.p.6
• New BNPL regulation is expected to come into effect in 2026, including mandatory affordability checks and direct FCA oversight.p.7

Key insights

1. BNPL services first launched in the UK in 2014 and became one of the key growth areas in payment markets.p.2
2. Worldpay expects BNPL's share of UK payments to grow more slowly, reaching 9% by 2030 from 8% today.p.2
3. The National Payments Study draws on a nationally representative sample of 2,000 individuals surveyed by Ipsos for UK Finance.p.2
4. The biggest growth in BNPL users in 2024 occurred among 55- to 64-year-olds, whose usage rose from 10% to 21%.p.3
5. Fashion regained ground in 2024 and, at 46% of purchases, remains the largest BNPL category.p.5
6. Computer hardware has lost ground over three years and is now only 5% of BNPL volume.p.5
7. The share of groceries within BNPL has remained stable at 3% since 2022.p.5
8. 41% of BNPL users were not very concerned or not concerned at all about getting into debt through BNPL use.p.6
9. New regulation expected in 2026 would bring BNPL firms under the direct remit of the FCA and give consumers the right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service.p.7