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Buy now, pay later (BNPL) stats

Canada ranks 19th for BNPL remorse

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By

Richard Laycock

Updated

Fact checked

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are having a moment right now but is the ease of making purchases a double-edged sword? Finder surveyed 32,771 Internet users across 23 countries and found that people from Canada rank 19th for BNPL remorse, with 11% saying they’d made a buy now, pay later mistake. This is below the global average of 17% and ahead of countries like Germany 10% and the United States (9%).

The most common Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) mistake in Canada is buying something impulsively, with 5.2% saying they’d made an impulse purchase. The next most common BNPL mistakes are overstretching their budget (3.1%) and paying a late fee (4.5%).

Men and women equal in their BNPL mistakes in Canada

Men (11.3%) are just as likely as women (11.3%) to say that they’ve made a BNPL mistake.

In 3 out of the 5 BNPL mistake categories, women were more likely than men to say that they’d made a BNPL error, including:

  • paying a late fee (5.1%)
  • overextending their budget (3.2%)
  • going into overdraft (2.2%)

As for those not using BNPL services, more men (24.4%) than women (22.2%) say they’ve never used a BNPL service.

People age 45-54 the most likely to have made a BNPL error

In Canada, those aged 45-54 lead the way in making BNPL mistakes with 12.8% saying they’d had a purchase issue of some kind using instalment payment services. The next group most likely to have a BNPL mishap was those aged 25-34 (12.6%), followed by people aged 35-44 (11.9%).

Global BNPL mistake trends

The most common BNPL error was making impulse purchases, with 10% saying they'd made a buy now, pay later mistake saying they'd bought an item on a whim. This was at its highest in Vietnam, with 24% of those in Vietnam buying items on impulse, followed by Thailand (20%) and Sweden (14%).
Getting stuck with late fees was the next most common BNPL mistake, with around 4% saying they'd paid a penalty for not making a payment on time. Those surveyed in Malaysia were most likely to be slugged with buy now, pay later late fees at 9.1%, followed by India (9.08%) and Vietnam (8.7%).
Going overboard on spending was also a somewhat common problem for those who'd made BNPL mistakes, with 3% saying they'd overstretched their budget. Respondents in Vietnam were most susceptible to overspending, with 5% of respondents blowing their budgets. Not too far behind Vietnam is Thailand (5.4%) followed by Italy (5.1%).
Interestingly, 34.5% of people in Spain said they'd never used a BNPL service, closely followed by 32.3% of Mexicans and 26.3% of people in the US.

Men more likely to have BNPL remorse

Men are more likely to say they made a BNPL error than women, with an average of 18.3% of men saying they've made a BNPL mistake compared to 16.2% of women. In fact, in 14 out of the 21 countries surveyed men were more likely to say they'd made a BNPL mistake than women.
The highest percentage of men staying they had buyers remorse following a BNPL purchase was in Thailand at 41.5%. The highest percentage of women making buy now, pay later mistakes was in Vietnam, with 38.1%.
Image: Getty
Richard Laycock's headshot
Senior editorial manager

Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based senior content marketing manager & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio

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