The size of the global ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) market was estimated at $90.69 billion in 2020, and according to data from the American market research company Allied Market Research, this market is expected to reach a value of $3.98 trillion by 2030, with an annual growth rate of 45.7% from 2021 to 2030.
Key players operating in this area include Affirm Holdings, Afterpay, Klarna, Laybuy Group, PayPal, Payl8r, Perpay, Quadpay, Sezzle, and Splitit, and recently one of the largest technology companies in the world, the American giant Apple, has entered this market, which we have already reported on in Lider.
However, only one company, or one provider of the ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ service, operates in the Croatian market, namely the company Leanpay, which collaborates with numerous banks in the area, including Addiko Bank.
– Buy now pay later is a rapidly growing financial service in many markets around the world. It is a new way of installment payment without credit cards or consumer loans at the point of sale or for online purchases. Addiko recognizes BNPL as another way to enable consumers to access simple and fast financing anytime and anywhere, and with the fintech Leanpay, which is the first to bring this concept to the Croatian market, we are developing solutions, some of which can already be found in our market today – explained representatives from Addiko Bank.
The Croatian Banking Association confirmed that banks continuously strive to keep up with the latest market trends, including this trend that we are slowly but surely adopting in Croatia.
– Banks continuously develop their services and products and invest significant resources in the digitalization of their operations to provide the highest quality service to their clients. Accordingly, most banks offer their clients the option of installment payments at points of sale, as well as the ability to split one-time transactions into installments for online purchases – stated representatives from HUB, confirming that various innovations are emerging in the global market that offer consumers various options, which affects the growth of competitiveness in the financial market and the speed of further development of financial services.
– At the same time, banks in the world and in Croatia are readily responding to market demands and investing significant resources to maximize the acceleration of financial services and to ensure that their clients have access to all the services they need – concluded HUB representatives.
PBZ also expressed its stance on this trend, stating that they are innovators of this type of lending in our market.
– The best example of this is the installment payment, without interest and fees, which we first introduced to the Croatian market back in 2002. Installment payment has numerous benefits. It is a ‘user-friendly’ convenience that offers quick and easy execution; it is enough to enter the number of installments into the POS device that the customer wants to split their purchase into, and the transaction is completed – they explained.
Although this trend has developed quite well abroad, it seems that Croatia is not lagging behind this new trend in the financial market.
