Why smarter affordability assessment is essential to ensuring new BNPL rules protect consumers without excluding those they were designed to help.
JULY 2026
Salad Group CEO Alex Marsh wrote to the Financial Times following reports that new Buy Now, Pay Later regulation could exclude millions of consumers from accessing BNPL.
In his letter, Alex welcomed the move towards regulation, but warned of the unintended consequences of relying on traditional credit histories to determine affordability. Many of those at risk of being declined have never missed a BNPL repayment, yet could still be penalised because they have a thin credit file that says little about how they manage their money today.
Alex argues that the answer lies in smarter assessment. Through Open Banking, lenders can look at real income, expenditure and current financial behaviour, helping ensure regulation protects consumers without unnecessarily shutting creditworthy people out of fair and affordable credit.
Read Alex’s full letter in the Financial Times here.