Experian Debuting BNPL Bureau Later This Year

In response to the rapid growth of buy now-pay later use among consumers, credit reporting agency Experian announced Wednesday it’s implementing the Buy Now Pay Later Bureau, which will provide a platform for BNPL providers, fintechs and point-of-sale lenders to share payment data tied to these transactions, the company said in a news release provided to Payments Dive.

Experian said the specialty bureau, debuting in the first half of the year, will offer “a comprehensive view of consumer payments, including the number of outstanding BNPL loans, total BNPL loan amounts and BNPL payment status,” per the release.

In addition to real-time reporting of consumers’ installment loan activity, the bureau will provide Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulated scores and attributes that BNPL providers and traditional lenders can use when making credit decisions, the release said. To shield consumers’ scores from immediate negative impact, detailed information related to each BNPL transaction “will be stored separately from Experian’s core credit bureau data.”