The bank said the service would be available to between 2 and 4 million of its customers,and it planned to roll out the product from the middle of this year.Credit:Attila Csaszar
In a sign of the pressure the bank’s move could put on margins of BNPL operators such as Afterpay and Zip Co,CBA said it would not charge any extra fees to merchants beyond standard merchant fees of slightly more than 1 per cent of a transaction’s value. In comparison,CBA said retailers on average paid about 4 per cent for BNPL services.
Amid an ongoing debate about whether BNPL should be regulated as credit,CBA also said it would perform credit checks on all of the customers before allowing them to take out the product.
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CBA’s group executive for retail banking,Angus Sullivan,said he was “struck” that some people who had deferred their mortgage or credit card payments during the COVID-19 crisis had continued to use BNPL products.
“That doesn’t sit well with me. We’ve got to make sure that holistically,customers are in a position where the product is appropriate,” he said. “We’re going to treat it like it’s credit.”
CBA’s BNPL product will work through the bank’s app,without any physical card,and will be available wherever debit or credit card transactions can be made.
While other lenders are closely watching the sector,withWestpac forging a partnership with Afterpay last year,CBA said it was the first BNPL offering from a major Australian bank.