Young Malaysians spent RM5.4bil through BNPL in just six months

Young Malaysians have spent RM5.4 billion through buy now, pay later (BNPL) services in just six months, accounting for 37.9% of all BNPL transactions and 36.7% of their total value, according to a recent finance ministry report. Malaysians aged 30 and below made 65.9 million BNPL transactions during this period. BNPL allows consumers to receive a product or service immediately while spreading payment over multiple instalments.

Within this age group, 173.9 million BNPL transactions worth RM14.7 billion were made across all age groups. While BNPL can make purchases feel more manageable, each instalment creates a future payment obligation, which can be harder to track when multiple smaller payments are spread across various purchases. As of June 30, young users had RM2.4 billion in outstanding BNPL financing, with RM96.8 million classified as non-performing.

The finance ministry emphasizes that BNPL debt represents only around 0.3% of Malaysia's overall household debt. However, the rapid expansion of BNPL use has prompted tighter regulation, with the Consumer Credit Act 2025 bringing previously unregulated non-bank credit activities under the supervision of the Consumer Credit Commission.

The aim is to encourage more transparent and responsible credit practices, including an affordability assessment for BNPL users with a credit limit above RM1,000 and bringing BNPL providers into a licensing framework.