PayLater: Instant Financial Solution or Debt Trap?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The PayLater feature on various e-commerce platforms is considered a saviour or instant financial solution for some people. With PayLater, individuals can easily purchase any goods on e-commerce sites even without having the money yet. This is because with this feature, e-commerce users can take the desired items first and pay for them next month or in several instalments. One resident named Vita (29) admits to having the PayLater feature on several e-commerce platforms with a credit limit of tens of millions of rupiah. For Vita, PayLater is a lifesaver when her money is tight but she needs to buy vital necessities. “Sometimes it also becomes a lifesaver because when we haven’t been paid yet, we need vital items, we can use PayLater,” she said when interviewed by Kompas.com in South Jakarta on Friday (27/3/2026). Her largest PayLater usage occurred in 2024 when she was preparing for her wedding. At that time, Vita’s savings for buying bridesmaid uniforms were insufficient, so she had to rely on PayLater. “It needed a dozen pieces of clothing, if totalled it was Rp 3 million, so I took it first with PayLater because I hadn’t been paid yet,” she explained. However, after the wedding and receiving her salary, Vita immediately paid off her PayLater debt to avoid accumulating much interest. For Vita, using PayLater is not forbidden as long as it is for urgent needs and there is a strategy to pay it off next month. Another user, Roby (26), also considers PayLater as his saviour in urgent situations. His largest PayLater bill was around Rp 2 million, for buying a phone for his mother. “At that time, I bought a phone for my mother because her phone was completely dead,” he said during the interview on Friday. Roby admitted that he was greatly helped by PayLater because he could immediately buy the phone for his mother, keeping their communication intact. Because if he had to buy it with cash at that time, he didn’t have the money, but on the other hand, the phone was urgently needed by his mother. The private sector employee also admitted that he never felt disadvantaged by using PayLater, due to its low interest. “In my opinion, whenever we borrow, there are consequences, but what I feel with PayLater like on Shopee is not like pinjol in terms of interest,” he said.