金融科技信贷的使用和停用：即买后付符合信用报告

The use and disuse of FinTechcredit:When buy-now-pay-later meets credit reporting by Yanfei Dong, Jiayin Hu, Yiping Huang, Han Qiu andYingguang Zhang Monetary and Economic Department January 2025 JEL classification: G21, G28, G51, G53. Keywords: FinTech, BNPL, consumer credit, informationsharing, credit reporting, overborrowing, BigTechplatforms. BISWorking Papers are written by members of the Monetary and EconomicDepartment of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to time by othereconomists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topicalinterest and are technical in character. The views expressed in them are those of theirauthors and not necessarily the views of the BIS. This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). ©Bank for International Settlements 2025. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may bereproduced or translated provided the source is stated. The Use and Disuse of FinTech Credit: WhenBuy-Now-Pay-Later Meets Credit Reporting∗ Yanfei Dong†Jiayin Hu‡Yiping Huang§Han Qiu¶Yingguang Zhang‖ Abstract How does information sharing affect consumers’ usage of FinTech credit?Using aunique dataset of “Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)” users from a large digital platformand exploiting a credit reporting policy change, we document that consumers signifi-cantly reduce BNPL usage when the BNPL lender becomes subject to credit reportingregulation.This reduction is particularly pronounced among borrowers with defaulthistories, who also show improved repayment behaviors compared to those withoutsuch records.The decrease in BNPL usage also leads to a reduction in online con-sumption, supporting the financial constraint hypothesis. Our findings indicate thatinformation sharing can help mitigate overborrowing and overspending, with strongereffects seen among younger borrowers, those who previously spent more, or those withcredit cards. We also highlight the synergies between BNPL lending and Big Tech plat-forms’ ecosystems, which imperfectly substitute for formal enforcement institutions. Keywords: FinTech, BNPL, consumer credit, information sharing, credit reporting,overborrowing, Big Tech platformsJEL classification: G21, G28, G51, G53 1Introduction Non-bank financial technology (FinTech), which enable lenders to extend credit to individ-uals underserved by banks, have significantly promoted financial inclusion (e.g., Goldsteinet al., 2019; Stulz, 2019; Fuster et al., 2019; Suri et al., 2021; Berg et al., 2022). However,the FinTech innovations often do not share borrower information with other lenders, makingtheir lending practices opaque and potentially leading to the accumulation of delinquencyrisk outside the regulatory framework. A prominent example is the fast-growing “buy now,pay later (BNPL)” industry, which constitutes an increasingly large fraction of the consumercredit market. Several concerns associated with BNPL, such as overborrowing and overex-tension risks (deHaan et al., 2024; Cornelli et al., 2023b), are often linked to the lack ofcredit information sharing.1 The information sharing via credit registries serves as an essential financial infrastructure,rewarding those who make timely payments and penalizing those who default (e.g., Garmaiseand Natividad, 2017).Therefore, information sharing might incentivise consumers whooverborrow and overspend to reduce their BNPL usage and delinquency, while those whosee credit reporting as an opportunity for credit building are more likely to increase theirBNPL usage. However, although BNPL has provoked policy discussions around the world(Cornelli et al., 2023a), few countries have implemented such credit reporting requirements.This raises an important yet understudied empirical question about whether credit reportinghelp could reduce overborrowing risks associated with BNPL. Our paper is the first to systematically analyze the impact of information sharing onBNPL credit usage.We assemble a unique dataset of 200,000 randomly selected BNPLusers from Huabei, China’s largest BNPL lender.2 Our purpose-built dataset contains user characteristics (such as age, gender, and city of residence), account opening date, monthlyBNPL usage, and consumption payments via Alipay.Furthermore, we exploit a majorregulatory change in China in 2021 that incorporated Huabei into the national credit registry,which serves as a leading example in BNPL regulation.3In September 2021, Huabei issued apublic statement officially announcing its compliance with credit reporting regulations, beforewhich Huabei’s user information remained proprietary data within Alipay’s ecosystem.4 We guide our analysis following theories on information sharing and contract enforcement(Jappelli and Pagano, 2002; Padilla and Pagano, 1997, 2000; Pagano, Marco and Jappelli,Tullio, 1993). Our main analysis focus on BNPL users who had already obtained a Huabeicredit line before our sample period between July 2020 and December 2022.Since theseborrowers h