Citizens Advice responds to the Treasury announcement on BNPL

Dame Clare Moriarty, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said:

“The Buy Now Pay Later sector continues to grow at a meteoric rate, but it could now remain unregulated for years. 

“Every day spent waiting for regulation is yet another day that shoppers are left unprotected and ill informed.  We’ve seen a shopper threatened with debt collectors after splitting the payment of a t-shirt and, more recently, a worrying two in five BNPL customers borrowing money to make repayments. 

“The government’s proposed rules will provide vital protection to many, but it must turbo-charge these plans.”

Notes to editors

  1. Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.

  2. Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. 

  3. We helped 2.4 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2020-21. And we had 40 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.

  4. Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 21,000 trained volunteers, working at over 2,600 service outlets across England and Wales.

  5. You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.