Sharp rise in 'buy now, pay later' credit among over-55s, data shows

Young people have fuelled its rise, but the use of “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) credit is exploding among older people, with uptake among 55to 64-year-olds more than doubling in a year, data shows.

- Rupert Jones

The shift to digital payments is also continuing apace, with more than half of UK adults using mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, mobile banking becoming the main way people access their accounts, and cash falling below 10% of all payments for the first time.

In its latest annual report on the UK payments market, the banking body UK Finance said almost a third of adults were largely cashless last year - prompting the cash machine network Link to say “we must not sleepwalk into a digital-only society before everyone is ready”. The researchers found a “notable jump” in the popularity of BNPL, with the percentage of UK adults using it rising from 14% to 25% in just a year.