Payments made by Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) methods more than doubled from 2019 to 2020, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday causing spikes in usage, research from payments processor Mollie has revealed.
Mollie’s data examined payment trends for small and medium-sized retailers, spanning tens of thousands of merchants across Europe, primarily from Germany, the UK., France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The data revealed that this year, BNPL usage increased by 51% for online purchases. The report also showed that small and medium-sized merchants across Europe experienced a 102% increase in the overall volume of transactions on Black Friday versus the Friday prior.
For Cyber Monday, there was an increase of 16% in the overall volume of transactions versus the Monday before.
However, earlier this month, LexisNexis Risk Solutions warned that a rise in BNPL payments could also result in an increase in fraud.
In its LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report H1, 2021, the company stated a major risk from fraud lies in the ability of fraudsters to use stolen credentials to open new accounts. As BNPL providers typically use ‘soft’ credit or identity checks, they are unlikely to find potential fraud indicators, such as the email address or mobile number not being linked to the named account. This issue may persist as e-commerce continues to grow.
Ken Serdons, chief commercial officer at Mollie, said, “Last year’s data hinted at the rapid growth of BNPL methods for small and medium-sized merchants. Our 2021 data shows strong, meaningful growth, driven by the flexibility and choice BNPL offers consumers.
“The majority of regions analysed last year were under severe pandemic lockdown, yet restrictions have somewhat eased across Europe this year. With that shift, some may have expected shoppers to return to brick-and mortar stores – but this is not the case and consumer confidence in e-commerce has continued to grow.”
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