Theme
BNPL to consumer banking
Buy-now-pay-later franchises expanding into full-spectrum consumer finance — debit, savings, lending, and (in some cases) stablecoin issuance.
The BNPL category has matured beyond checkout installments. Affirm and Klarna are both building toward full consumer-banking franchises, with Klarna additionally launching its own stablecoin. Returns are dominated by credit performance through the consumer cycle, take-rate per transaction, and the durability of merchant relationships against PayPal- and Apple-style competition.