Key Points
- According to the government, the current laws for 'buy now, pay later' (BNPL) services lack the affordability checks that are crucial and typically performed for credit cards and other loans.
- The bill proposed by Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones aims to establish strong protections for individuals using credit lenders.
- A 2022 survey by the women and children charity Good Shepherd found that 73 per cent of practitioners reported that their clients failed to repay BNPL debts.
- The same survey also revealed that 84 per cent of practitioners noted that clients with BNPL debts opened additional BNPL accounts to repay their existing debts.