Consumers are actively looking for Buy Now, Pay Later from the places they already trust with their money: their bank or credit union. And when they don’t find it there, they don’t wait. They go looking for it elsewhere.
We know this because sometimes, they come straight to us.
As a BNPL platform built specifically for financial institutions, equipifi receives demo requests from banks and credit unions through our website. But as BNPL demand accelerated, something unexpected started happening: consumers began reaching out directly.
They’re drivers, contractors, lawyers, insurance agents, students, HVAC technicians. Everyday people from all walks of life. They bank at large national banks, community financial institutions & credit unions, and consumer finance fintechs. And over time, the volume of these inbound messages has grown, now arriving several times a week.
The pattern is hard to ignore.
Consumer expectations around banking are changing. People want BNPL where they bank, and demand is outpacing the speed at which many financial institutions are making it available.
Seeing this play out, unprompted, in our own inbox makes the shift unmistakably real.
In 2026, it’s no longer a question of who uses BNPL.
BNPL reached mainstream adoption in 2025, cutting across age, income, and credit profiles. As Sean Gelles of J.D. Power puts it plainly: consumers want BNPL, and younger shoppers are already there.
Research from PYMNTS helps explain why. The top reasons consumers use BNPL aren’t demographic-specific at all. They use it because it’s easy, functional, and reliable. Consumers see BNPL as a way to align spending with future cash flow, anchored in predictability rather than revolving debt. Compared to credit cards, it feels more accessible and easier to manage.
Tony DeSanctis of Cornerstone Advisors summed it up well: BNPL is simply a better mousetrap. And by 2025, it became a mainstream payment option.
According to PYMNTS research, 70% of consumers prefer BNPL from their financial institution, with trust in the provider cited as a primary reason. People want BNPL from the institutions that already hold their deposits and manage their financial lives.
But BNPL isn’t always available there.
Instead, consumers find it through third-party fintechs like Klarna and Affirm, or directly through retailers like Amazon and Walmart. These providers make BNPL easy to access and actively market it. From there, consumers are often encouraged to open new deposit accounts, activate new debit cards, and deepen those alternative relationships.
In this dynamic, the traditional financial institution is reduced to a funding source -- for now. And with Affirm, PayPal, and soon Sezzle pursuing bank charters, the risk isn’t hypothetical. Full primary relationships are at stake.
Sean Gelles has noted in The Financial Brand that financial institutions, as an industry, have been surprisingly slow to adopt and market BNPL. Many still cling to outdated assumptions: that BNPL only appeals to “low-end” consumers, that it’s for those who “can’t qualify for credit cards,” or that debit-first experiences don’t matter.
The outcome of that hesitation is measurable: higher attrition.
When consumers can’t find BNPL at their institution, they look elsewhere. And sometimes, they end up in our inbox, asking how to get BNPL from the place they already bank.
Today, hundreds of financial institutions are launching and maintaining their own BNPL programs, without adding headcount. For many, the harder work isn’t implementation; it’s revisiting long-held assumptions about BNPL and deciding whether those assumptions still serve their customers and members.
If your customers are actively looking for BNPL from their bank or credit union (and some are already coming to us asking for it) are you ready to meet them where they are?
The question is no longer whether consumers want BNPL.
It’s whether their financial institution will be the one to provide it.