There is a new scam out there that will destroy a lot of people.
It is the "Buy Now, Pay Later" (BNPL) loan scheme.
I bet you don't know how it REALLY works and who will get left holding the bag (hint: not the poor people taking out the loans).
It works like this:
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Someone who can't afford to buy something, wants it and is offered a BNPL deal. They can just buy it now and pay it off in "4 easy installments" or whatever.
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There is no credit check. There is no income verification. Just, "Do you want it? Yes? OK, you got it -- NOW!"
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It can be for anything: groceries, clothes, furniture, whatever. This is not put on a credit or debit card. It is a separate loan. No collateral, just a signature.
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It is not reported on any credit bureau, so other lenders do not know how much of this debt that a credit applicant for a regular loan might have.
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Many of the people who are getting these loans have no ability and/or no intention of ever paying it back. They just want the stuff -- now.
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The loan is arranged by an affiliate (Affirm is a company that is the big player in this). The affiliate operates the program, so that a bank can lend the money to the customer, with the retailer acting on behalf of the affiliate at the point of sale.
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Once the purchase is complete, the loan is owned by the bank.
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The bank immediately sells the loan to the affiliate, and the bank earns a fee. The bank takes no risk. The retailer also takes no risk, but does make a sale they might not have otherwise made.
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The affiliate (i.e. Affirm) then packages these loans up into collateralized debt, just like they do with Mortgage-Backed Securities. And just like during the years leading up to the mortgage melt-down, ratings agencies are grading these BNPL Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's) as "A paper." That is, these CDO's are rated as high-grade quality debt securities, even though the underlying assets are entirely made up of debt that was never underwritten by any standards whatsoever (no credit check, income qualifications, no collateral, etc.).
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THEN ... these CDO's are sold via Wall Street to pension funds, mutual funds, and through investment broker advisors, who advise John Q. Public to buy these as a good investment because they earn an interest rate income that is slightly more than US Treasury Bills.
Unlike some Mortgage-Backed Securities, these BNPL CDO's have ZERO chance of ever paying off in full, since the debt can be easily ignored and never paid back.
These things WILL crash at some point. Not if, but when.
The middle class retirment system will get slammed with these, as they become more and more "attractive" by offering higher and higher interest income over time.
Excellent interview and discussion on this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms10ZU9qdd4
BTW, the man on the left doing the interview has a YT channel about all the overbuilding in new construction and all the reasons why the Federal Reserve has created a ticking time bomb that will explode at some point.
It is becoming more and more clear that the central bank has orchestrated this on purpose.
First, they found an excuse to push interest rates way down and keep them there for a few years. People adjusted to this as the "new normal." Real estate prices went sky high because people could afford it with very low interest rates.
Meanwhile, they also pumped $9 trillion of fake printed money into the system, causing the massive inflation we are now seeing.
Then, the Fed found an excuse to push interest rates up very high in a short time, and keep them there. This has caused financial chaos, with the full effects yet to come.
The federal government (Congress/President) have also played a role, especially in the past 3 years, with massive increases in spending and borrowing, with the complete elimination of the debt ceiling, and with much of that spending being pumped into areas of the economy that has caused a temporary illusion of prosperty that is hiding an otherwise economy on the brink of disaster.
My personal opinion is that this is all been done by design, to wipe out the middle class. The scum cabal plans to wipe out the middle class to destroy America, so that one world government can be achieved.
We need to talk more and more about eliminating the idea of a central bank. It is the evil root of all financial manipulation.
A few flaws (in my view) in your logic, at least based on Affirm:
1- I've used Affirm a few times, and it always shows up in my credit report, as a revolving account. These were mid term, 12-24 months, in amounts over $1000
2- Affirm runs both soft and hard credit checks depending on the situation, and definitely runs a credit check when you first apply for an account.
3- Affirm is a public company and you can see that loan sales account for ~30% of their revenue, and they make money through many other means.
4- If you miss payments, Affirm will either report you to credit agencies or charge of the loan and send you to a collection agency
5- I've personally been declined for BNPL, and have friends who've been declined (Klarna, Paypal, Affirm) though I don't know the reasons behind it.
6- Overall, CDO debt is longer term, and higher amounts. BNPL loans are on average below $200 and in terms of weeks, not even months.
I agree is a risk, especially considering the main market is mid to low income citizens, but yet, it's still in the single digits compared to other loan types, and while it's growing, it's not as big of a risk as you are making it out to be. I personally think the scheme is geared towards loaning money to the growing portion of the population that will never be able to afford a home, a car, pay off student loans, etc.
Also personally, I think you just watched The Big Short and got creative with this post.
Man +1 to everything you said. These dorks on this wannabe youtube video have a couple of key facts very wrong.
Affirm most definitely checks your credit and reports. I have two engineer friends at Affirm and I used to work in fintech.
They also don’t sell your debt and it could not be put into a CDO because, as these chodes pointed out, there is no collateral (the C in CDO)
BNPL are great tools for people who aren’t dumb with money. Better to go after payday loan and check cashing places if you’re trying to save people from themselves.
+1 to Affirm showing on my credit report.
For those of you pushing back on this issue:
That's a really weird assumption to make, false, and a strawman. I posted my info based on the video in my post, which you probably didn't bother to watch.
But since you and a few others here seem to have had a different experience (and you all seem to think you know what you are talking about), I did a little more digging.
I think the full picture was not presented by the man in the video nor by you.
Here were the results of some digging:
https://www.investopedia.com/how-does-affirm-work-5183684
Yes and no. It seems that in some cases, it does, and in other cases it does not. Here is a website claiming to have researched several types of lenders, and in the table down the page, it says there is no credit check (at least for some types of loans, I assume):
https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/buy-now-pay-later-no-credit-check/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buy-now-pay-later-loans-131358423.html
You don't think they just lend money, and then sit back and collect 0% interest for their effort, do you?
BTW, this means that if YOU have a loan through Affirm, you make your payments to Affirm and you THINK that Affirm owns the loan. But they do not. They only service it for the investors who bought the loan. This is how most mortgages work today, too.
https://thestrategystory.com/2022/02/26/how-does-affirm-make-money-business-model/
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/affirm-seeks-new-sponsor-banks-as-it-shifts-to-interest-bearing-loans-74245833
Clearly, Affirm has more than one business model for making money.
Yes, and no.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/03/18/should-investors-be-concerned-about-affirms-delaye/
In an interesting twist, an appeals court has ruled that these types of vehicles are legally considered to be "syndicated loans" rather than "securities," and therefore are not subject to securities laws.
https://www.ballardspahr.com/insights/alerts-and-articles/2023/08/second-circuit-affirms-syndicated-loans-are-not-securities
Yes.
CDO's vs. CLO's.
I wrote "Collateralized Debt Obligations" (CDO's) in my OP, because that is what it looked like to me.
But I did not know about the court decision or how they are marketed to investors.
Turns out, they are actually called "Collateralized Loan Obligations" (CLO's).
https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/collateralized-loan-obligations-etfs-to-consider
That article is not specific, the the video in my OP stated that the average credit of these borrowers is sub-prime ("C" or "D" type of credit), but the CLO's are packaged and rated as "A."
This is the exact same scenario as what happened in the mortgage melt-down, which ended up with a lot of loan fraud and crazy approvals of loans that should never have been done, even where fraud did not occur. These were also "C" and "D" type of credit but the collateralization gave the ratings agencies cover to grade the investments as "A." But they were never worthy of those ratings.
So, in summary, I see the info in the video as more or less accurate. It did not include a deep dive, but rather gave a summary.
The only question is: What is the real risk?
More and more people will be using these loans because a recession is coming, due to all the reckless spending by the fed gov't and fed reserve. As more and more people use these loans to pay for food and basic things, and as Wall Street sees this as a great way to make money and push off the risk to an unsuspecting public as a "good investment," this will become a bigger issue over time.
The mortgages were not a problem ... until they were.
Since Affirm and similar companies say they use "modernized risk models" and do not disclose what that means, we have no idea what the real risk is.
Just like taking a vaccine with a mystery drug cocktail.
Good luck with that!
LOL
I agree on the credit check and credit report aspects. The dastardly parts of the described BNPL scheme that really separates it from other known schemes - the no questions asked part - can be proven false. The whole thing's disgusting, but just another card from the same deck IMO.
I use Affirm and Afterpay. You are only charged interest if you choose the monthly option. The biweekly PMT for 4 payments is interest free. I assume they make money from the retailer.