Buy now, pay later makes it trickier to track how consumers are doing

Private credit has been around for decades, but with the growth of services like buy now, pay later, it’s entering the mainstream. That makes it harder to measure how consumers are doing, as the Wall Street Journal’s Telis Demos recently reported.

“The question is: Is this a population of people who are distinct from the people who have credit cards?” Demos said. “Or is it something that people use to augment what they would do with credit cards and more traditional ways of borrowing?”

Demos spoke with “Marketplace” correspondent Kristin Schwab about these services and who uses them.

Click the audio player above to hear their conversation.