Hundreds of millions of ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ loans will soon affect credit scores for millions of Americans who use the loans to buy clothing, furniture, concert tickets, and takeout.
Scoring company FICO said Monday that it is rolling out a new model that factors the short-term loans into their consumer scores. A majority of lenders use FICO scores to determine a borrower’s credit worthiness. Previously, the loans had been excluded, though Buy Now, Pay Later company Affirm began voluntarily reporting pay-in-four loans to Experian, a separate credit bureau, in April.
