Dive Brief:

• During the 2026 holiday season, a fifth of consumers said they’ll use buy now, pay later providers more than they did last year, according to a survey by the Electronic Transactions Association and TSG, The Strawhecker Group, a payments consulting firm. While a quarter said their BNPL usage will remain the same, nearly half (47%) said they don’t anticipate using BNPL payments at all.
• Among people who like using BNPL services, 52% said the payment method allows them to manage large expenses, while 45% use it for unexpected purchases, the survey of 1,099 consumers found.
• As for consumers who eschew BNPL options, 73% said they don’t like accruing debt, and 55% don’t want to risk paying high fees or interest payments, per the annual survey, which was released Wednesday.

Dive Insight:

The survey by the ETA and TSG — which gathered responses from U.S. consumers across genders, income levels, generations and geographic areas — suggests that consumers’ perceptions of BNPL payments vary by generation and income level. 

When asked how they felt about their BNPL purchases over the past few months, about four in ten (37%) of consumers across income levels and generations viewed BNPL services favorably, compared to 36% with an unfavorable view. 

While 47% of millennials viewed BNPL payments favorably, 39% of Gen Zers, 38% of Gen Xers and 24% of Baby Boomers said the same. Meanwhile, about a third (35%) of low-income and high-income consumers like BNPL payments, compared to 40% of middle-income consumers who prefer the payment method, the survey found. 

The survey also shed light on which new payment methods consumers have tried over the 12 months. 

At the top of the list was tap-to-pay at 53%, followed by digital wallets (31%) and peer-to-peer apps (28%). By contrast, only 9% said they had tried BNPL in the past year, and cryptocurrencies were lowest at 3% during that same period, the survey found.

The survey tracked a similar pattern from prior years for the payment methods consumers use regularly. 

Among the payment methods consumers said they used regularly, tap-to-pay ranked first at 81%, followed by digital wallets (61%) and peer-to-peer apps (60%). About a fifth (21%) of survey respondents said they used BNPL services regularly; cryptocurrency payments came in last again at only 8%, per the survey results. 

“Convenience and familiarity are converting trial into repeat behavior more effectively than novelty alone,” the report said. “Once consumers try tap-to-pay, digital wallets, and P2P apps, a large share continue using them; driving the first successful transaction remains an important adoption lever.”

Along with TSG’s and the Electronic Transactions Association’s findings, other surveys suggest that consumers perceive BNPL services as a tool for spreading out their payments. In a recent PayPal Holdings survey of 2,005 adults, about six in ten consumers reported leaning toward BNPL payments to extend their holiday budgets and control their spending.

Consumers turned to BNPL payments last year to divvy up their purchases, Block subsidiary Afterpay said earlier this year. During the 2025 holiday season, the company noted that most (96%) of its customers who used its installment payment services for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping had repaid their debts early or on time.