Paylater Business Grows Rapidly, Bad Debt Becomes a Threat

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The buy now pay later (BNPL) or paylater services industry is showing rapid growth, but it leaves behind the problem of high bad debts.

PT Pefindo Biro Kredit (IdScore) reports that outstanding paylater from various industries reached Rp 56.3 trillion up to February 2026.

This figure grew 86.7 percent year-on-year compared to the same period last year.

IdScore’s President Director, Tan Glant Saputrahadi, said that this result far exceeds the growth of conventional consumer credit.

Based on IdScore data, paylater credit disbursement in Indonesia is still dominated by the general banking industry with outstanding of Rp 18.9 trillion up to February 2026.

After that, the dominant contributions to paylater credit disbursement come from the fintech peer-to-peer lending (fintech lending) industry and digital banking.

This figure also represents the most prominent growth compared to the paylater business in general banks, digital banks, or multifinance.

Glant added that paylater financing disbursement grew 21 times higher compared to credit cards.

Meanwhile, credit cards themselves remain stagnant with annual growth of 3-6 percent.

Glant revealed that based on data collected by IdScore, the paylater non-performing loan (NPL) rate has been above 5 percent since 2023.

The highest paylater bad debt rate occurred in 2023 at 5.31 percent.

The paylater NPL rate once dropped to 3.21 percent in 2024 and rose again to 5.14 percent in 2025.