Key takeaway: As more consumers report turning to existing card accounts rather than standalone BNPL apps for pay-later purchases, the underwriting, dispute, and chargeback relationship on that spending increasingly sits with card issuers and networks rather than BNPL-specific providers. That’s a shift in who merchants and consumers should expect to deal with when an installment purchase goes wrong.
Credit card installment plans are pulling ahead of standalone buy now, pay later (BNPL) services. That’s the finding of new PYMNTS Intelligence research on how U.S. consumers are splitting payments.
The report, “The Pay Later Data Shift: Credit Card Installments Take the Lead,” tracks a self-reported monthly survey of roughly 2,500 U.S. adults, running from September 2025 through March 2026 and building on a series that launched in April 2025. It found that the share of consumers who reported using card installment plans rose to 36% in March 2026 from 23% at the series’ starting point in April 2025, a 13-percentage-point jump. That April 2025 figure marks where this particular survey began tracking the two products, not necessarily a historical low for card installment adoption.
BNPL usage, meanwhile, moved in a narrower band of 12% to 15% across the months in between and closed the period back at 15%, the same level where it started. By March 2026, the share of consumers reporting card installment use ran at more than twice the rate of those reporting BNPL use.
PYMNTS Intelligence frames the pattern as evidence that the pay-later market is developing around existing accounts, distribution, and customer relationships. No single product category is winning outright.
The shift showed up most clearly among younger consumers. The share of Gen Z respondents reporting credit card installment use climbed to 47% in March 2026 from 31% in April 2025. Their reported BNPL use rose only modestly, to 23% from 21%. Millennials and bridge millennials followed a similar pattern.
Across the survey series, they reported using card installments at roughly 1.8 to 2.5 times their reported BNPL rate. Younger consumers still want to split payments; they’re just increasingly doing it through the card they already have rather than through a separate BNPL provider. Income cut the other way for BNPL specifically.
Consumers earning $150,000 or more reported using BNPL at about twice the rate of those earning under $50,000 (20% versus 10% in March). That positions BNPL as a cash-flow tool used across the income spectrum, not only by lower-income shoppers.
Why it matters: Card issuers can offer installment plans inside accounts consumers already hold. That gives them a built-in adoption path. Customers don’t need to open a new account or download a new app. PYMNTS describes it as an express lane inside a store customers already visit. That structural advantage helps explain why card-based installments are pulling ahead, even as BNPL providers continue to serve a meaningful, if steadier, slice of the market.
Source: PYMNTS