As the use of BNPL continues to grow across the U.S., so too do the challenges facing lenders, regulators, and consumers. Fragmented reporting, limited visibility, and outdated infrastructure are making it harder to spot risk and reward good financial behaviour.
That’s why Qlarifi is proud to announce a new partnership with Equifax, one of the world’s leading data and analytics companies, to launch the first cross-provider, real-time BNPL credit study in the U.S.
More than half of U.S. consumers now use BNPL, and a significant number plan to increase their usage in 2025. However, most BNPL activity today is invisible to traditional credit bureaus. These systems were built for mortgages and personal loans, not for short-term, high-frequency purchases that span multiple providers.
That gap matters. Most BNPL users work with more than one provider, and many have active loans running concurrently across different platforms. Without a unified view, it is difficult for lenders to identify emerging patterns like loan stacking or signs of financial stress.
But this isn’t just about reducing defaults or improving fraud defences. It’s also about helping transform BNPL into a credit-positive tool, one that rewards responsible usage and supports consumers in building their credit profile over time.
“BNPL providers and traditional lenders have been flying blind for too long,” said Alex Naughton, CEO of Qlarifi. “This joint study, providing real-time data across multiple providers, will be a crucial first step in understanding how organisations can better serve the evolving needs of both the lending community and consumers by offering a more complete and transparent view of how BNPL behaviour can inform credit decisioning.”
Legacy approaches often penalise BNPL users as a few low-limit transactions across multiple providers can appear as risky utilisation or excessive credit-seeking, even when a consumer is repaying on time.
Qlarifi’s goal is to change that narrative. We believe responsible BNPL usage should be credit building, not credit damaging, especially for Gen Z and millennial consumers who are often underserved by legacy systems.
As Jake Osborne, SVP and GM of Fintech and Payments at Equifax, put it: “Conducting a group study with an innovative partner like Qlarifi and multiple BNPL providers will ultimately allow the industry to identify the potential to minimize loan stacking risks and trends, quantify the predictive power of BNPL data, and maximize the benefits to consumers”.
This collaboration follows Qlarifi’s recent launch in the Netherlands in partnership with Klarna. With strong interest from other regions, we’re now focused on expanding into additional markets in the months ahead. The U.S. study marks the next phase of that journey. We’re laying the groundwork for a more inclusive and transparent future of credit, one that works for modern consumers and modern lenders alike.
