A Study on Customer Preferences towards Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Services and its Impact on their Financial Well-Being in Chennai City

Abstract

The technological revolution has seen a massive change in the payment systems and has resulted in a plethora of options for making a payment for any transaction. The popularizing FinTech industry has given various solutions for making payments digitally without the involvement of physical currency. It has reshaped the customer behaviour and the market as a whole. The emergence of this industry has resulted in several digital payments options such as Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Neo Banks and Payment Banks, Payment Gateways, Cryptocurrencies and even Point of Sale (POS) Credit like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services. India has been quite conservative towards credit and has always seen it as a debt trap instrument. But the new FinTech startups managed to change the customer mentality by increasing the awareness and providing more valuable solutions using BNPL. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic postulated itself as an opportunity for the players in the credit industry. This paper adds to the growing literature exploring the impact of BNPL services on the users’ financial well-being along with the customer preference towards them over other forms of credit. It helps in understanding how the demographic factors such as age and income have had an impact on the users of BNPL in terms of their preference and financial soundness.