Consumer fintech says "everything is fine"
Quick check on the Almighty Consumer from some of the biggest names in consumer fintech
BNPL reports “all good”
Shopify does loans
Square’s ‘financial inclusion’ plan going swimmingly
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Consumer fintech cos say “everything is fine”
On the subject of consumer stress (or the lack thereof), some prominent consumer fintechs reported on their credit businesses, and everything appears to be just fine.
If anyone was going to stretch underwriting to accommodate growth, it’d be companies that are focused on, well, growth.
As best as I can tell, (reasonably) high growth consumer fintechs are growing, but without too much stretching:
Affirm’s AFRM 0.00%↑ delinquencies are fine:
Shopify’s SHOP 0.00%↑ loans are performing fine:
Square/Block’s SQ 0.00%↑ loans are “consistent with historical ranges” (which I assume is pretty close to fine, otherwise someone is getting sued):
So if there’s some credit stress, it’s not really showing up anywhere that I can see (other than VA homebuyers, I suppose).
This is consistent with the overall clean bill of consumer health. There are some pockets of trouble (because there are always pockets), but even there, it’s really not so bad.
Square actually makes a big deal about the “financial inclusion” of its credit products—they even published a whole white paper about it.
Longer-term Random Walk readers know that BNPL contains multitudes, and that my inclusion is your predation (depending on the weather).
Either way, Square is deliberately targeting consumers further down the credit quality ladder and appears to be doing a-ok, and that’s the point I wanted to make.
Previously, on Random Walk
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