BNPL market

BYPL market is a new niche in financing and lending. It makes micro-financing much easier with 0 down payment.  Afrm appears to be a leader in this segment and has just over the hump the last quarter. The company was founded by a founder of paypal. They may replace mastercard etc. in the future, though mastercard has introduced their own buy-now-pay-later service in 2022. A seeking alpha article summarizes the competition very well. Inflation from tariff could be a tailwind for them.? Below are two most important points from the article:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4480286-affirm-vs-mastercard-deep-dive-differences-in-bnpl-strategy-and-who-wins-long-term

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3) Mastercard has no internal core underwriting and risk management model for underwriting the credit approval process for consumers. They will be relying on the third-parties such as banks and financial institutions outlined above in the press to help them with these processes.

4) No 100% full SKU data: I should emphasize the benefit of the SKU data. The SKU level unlocks numerous use-cases and opportunities for BNPL providers. For example, retailers like Walmart could work with a merchant like Apple (AAPL) to minimize or bypass a network rail to subsidize iPhones or Apple devices. MA/V or even PayPal's (PYPL) infrastructure cannot easily access this SKU level as efficiently as direct BNPL suppliers do. Mastercard in their earnings calls mentioned that their "BNPL program allows merchants and lenders so they can share information like SKU level data under the right data privacy and consumer consent conditions." While Mastercard will receive this data, due to their lack of full integration and their old technology, there are limitations to how much Mastercard sees access. MA does not control the merchant POS and has the level of direct relationships with merchants like Affirm and the direct players do.