Coupang beats a hasty retreat from buy now, pay later

Home > Business > Industry

print dictionary print

Coupang beats a hasty retreat from buy now, pay later

Coupang delivery trucks are parked in Seoul. [NEWS1]

Coupang delivery trucks are parked in Seoul. [NEWS1]

 
Coupang will scale back its deferred payment service in October.
 
The e-commerce company allows its customers to pay for Rocket Delivery orders — items Coupang directly purchases from sellers — in up to 11 monthly installments without credit cards or having to pay interest.
 
The company said Friday it will allow customers to postpone payments for only one month starting Oct. 1. The service has been operating on a pilot basis since 2020, and was only offered to select people, such as some Rocket Wow membership users or people who heavily use Coupang.
 
Users who make purchases until Sept. 30 and have remaining payments will be able to finish paying in multiple monthly payments.
 
Coupang didn’t say it why it is scaling back the service or disclose the service’s delinquency rate. 
 
Its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) program was more generous than those offered by competitors. 
 
Toss and Naver Pay offer BNPL services with a spending limit of 300,000 won ($225) per month and a one-month payment period, as stipulated by the Financial Services Commission. Coupang isn't subject to the cap because it directly buys the Rocket Delivery products it sells and offers deferred payment for products from its own inventory.
 
Naver Pay had a delinquency rate of 1.26 percent as of March, according to data submitted to the office of Rep. Yun Chang-hyun. Local credit card companies had a delinquency rate of 0.54 percent at end of 2021.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)