The findings, contained in a new report by credit technology company Render, indicate the success Monzo has had in offering its ‘Flex’ BNPL product to existing customers, which allows any Monzo customer to spread the cost of any payment, regardless of whether the merchant offers BNPL or not.

The Render Report also uncovered that BNPL transactions do not routinely appear on credit histories, despite being a form of debt. Of the more than 7,500 customers whose anonymised data was analysed between 2022 and 2023 - and who were known to be using BNPL - over half (51%) did not have it on their credit reports.

Moreover, the Render Report found the average transaction count had gone up for all age groups among BNPL customers in the population studied, suggesting that BNPL is being used to fund more, smaller purchases rather than large single-ticket items. This suggests the increasing adoption of BNPL for routine expenses.

The Render Report was produced by surveying anonymised Open Banking information of people who consented to share their data whilst applying for a loan via Render’s sister company, the B2C lender Abound.

Other findings in the rest of the report include:

• The pandemic era surge in online spending reversed in 2023, with average online spending per person down 3% in that year versus 2022, whilst high street and supermarket spending bounced back (with increased spending at discount stores like Poundland, Aldi, and Lidl).

• The vast majority of people (62%) still took out cash every month across 2023. Despite the rise in popularity of contactless payments, only 3% of people had not used a cash machine in the previous 12 months.

• Whilst subscriptions to streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime increased by 9% in 2023, cinema ticket sales increased by nearly a third (29%) in the same period.

Gerald Chappell, CEO and Co-Founder of Render and Abound, said:

“Open Banking uncovers insights not found in traditional credit checks, such as the use of BNPL and even the frequency of problem gambling.

“The absence of BNPL transactions on the majority of credit reports studied is particularly striking as it means that lenders who do not use Open Banking data are tossing the coin on whether the indebtedness of their customers is accurate, which could lead to debt accumulation.

“We hope by sharing these insights we encourage a debate about what the future of responsible lending should look like.”