BNPL Turns into a Life-style Device as 53% Use It for Experiences

That shift is on the heart of “Buy Now, Pay Later Powers the Experience Economy,” a January 2026 PYMNTS Intelligence knowledge e book that tracks how pay-later choices are shifting past retail checkout and into experiences, holidays and on a regular basis monetary administration.

Based on a survey of practically 4,000 shoppers carried out between Nov. 17 and Dec. 12, 2025, the report exhibits installment funds turning into a routine instrument slightly than a particular financing determination.

The headline discovering isn’t merely that purchase now, pay later (BNPL) use is rising. It is the place and why it’s rising. Consumers are more and more utilizing pay later for concert events, journey, house companies and even requirements corresponding to utilities and medical payments.

This growth is going on alongside rising bank card balances, not as an alternative of them. Cards stay central, however installments at the moment are layered on high, giving households extra methods to handle money move when costs keep excessive and budgets tighten.

The result’s a shopper credit score surroundings that’s extra versatile, but in addition extra complicated, as short-term financing turns into embedded in on a regular basis choices made by households.

Three knowledge factors from the report illustrate how shortly that shift is taking maintain:

• 53% of shoppers say they would like to make use of pay-later choices when buying tickets for occasions and experiences corresponding to concert events or massages, up from 40% six months earlier. That represents a 33% enhance in desire in a brief time period.
• Average month-to-month bank card balances reached $3,564 in November 2025, up $198 from April, with will increase seen throughout all monetary life, together with shoppers who don’t reside paycheck to paycheck.
• Among shoppers residing paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay payments, 29% plan to pay solely the minimal bank card fee or much less, signaling continued stress on revolving debt even earlier than extra seasonal spending hits .

Beyond these figures, the report factors to a broader behavioral change with implications for retailers, lenders and platforms. Pay later is influencing the place shoppers select to spend, not simply how they pay. More than 4 in 10 shoppers say the provision of installment choices is extremely influential when reserving journey or holidays. That makes financing a requirement driver, notably for expertise classes that peak round holidays and main occasions.

At the identical time, the information present that pay later isn’t performing as an alternative to bank cards. Instead, it usually sits beside them as a complement. Seventy p.c of shoppers say they’re no less than considerably doubtless to make use of a general-purpose bank card for vacation purchases, whereas 44% say they’re doubtless to make use of mounted installment plans.

Consumers who count on to make use of BNPL in the course of the holidays carry card balances greater than $1,100 larger than those that don’t, suggesting installments usually function a short-term money move bridge slightly than a reset of general debt ranges.

Other findings underscore how installment habits is spreading into on a regular basis monetary administration. Consumers are more and more paying utilities, medical and dental payments over time, blurring the road between discretionary and important spending. Even older cohorts, who usually tend to pay greater than the minimal or repay balances, are working in an surroundings the place installment choices are normalized.

Taken collectively, the report means that pay later has change into a part of the monetary infrastructure of shopper life. It shapes spending selections. It influences service provider competitors. And it coexists with rising card balances slightly than changing them. This is not a distinct segment checkout characteristic. It is a structural shift.