Banks tweak card offerings to compete with buy-now-pay-later players

SINGAPORE’S banks are offering shorter instalment periods on their credit cards, lowering eligibility thresholds and dangling rewards in a bid to woo customers from competitor financiers offering “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) options.

Banks have long offered interest-free instalment plans to eligible credit card customers. But some of this business is being eroded by BNPL vendors such as Atome, Grab and ShopBack.

According to data and analytics company GlobalData, BNPL is expected to account for 4.1 per cent of e-commerce payments value in the Asia-Pacific region in 2026. FIS Global, in its Global Payments Report 2021, also projected that BNPL will double its point-of-sale share to 1.6 per cent by 2025.