Warren, Blumenthal, Duckworth, Hirono Probe Credit Reporting Companies on Buy Now Pay Later Loan Reporting

Warren, Blumenthal, Duckworth, Hirono Probe Credit Reporting Companies on Buy Now Pay Later Loan Reporting

"Until all relevant parts of this industry align on the use of BNPL data, consumers are left in limbo where BNPL data from a subset of lenders is provided to a subset of credit reporting companies with varying impacts for consumers"

Letter to Experian | Letter to Equifax | Letter to TransUnion

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, led her colleagues Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) in sending a letter to major credit reporting companies Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, seeking clarity on how credit reporting companies are approaching the incorporation of Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) products into consumers' credit reports. This letter follows the Senators' initial letters seeking information from BNPL companies last fall.

"The current infrastructure of credit reporting in the United States is extremely opaque; the credit reporting industry has been very secretive about its scoring models, which presents major, potential consumer protection issues. With the rise of data harvesting, credit reporting companies hold more information about consumers than ever before. Moreover, credit reporting companies are also now performing the functions of data harvesters themselves," wrote the Senators.

"In November 2025, we requested information from seven BNPL providers about their practices, including if they reported BNPL loans to major credit bureaus. With one notable exception, most BNPL providers do not automatically provide data to credit reporting agencies," wrote the Senators. "Companies' concerns included that credit reporting agencies may: interpret BNPL loans in a manner that is harmful to their customers, including adding 'unnecessary' tradelines to a consumers' credit report; be unable to handle complexities when consumers make returns; lower their customer's credit scores based on their interpretation of the BNPL data; and broader concerns about the manner and types of data that are used to determine a credit score."

The Senators concluded: "Given the exceptional growth in the BNPL industry in recent years, BNPL loans are becoming a larger part of consumer's credit pictures at the same time that Americans are under historic financial pressures. Particularly as at least one major BNPL provider automatically reports its loans, we write to better understand how (your company) is treating BNPL loans. We request answers to the following questions no later than May 18, 2026."

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