The Dutch government and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) have raised concerns about delayed-payment services such as Klarna and Adyen expanding to physical stores. Therefore, the House of Representatives has adopted a motion that would see the system banned from physical stores.

Pay later system causing debt accumulation in the Netherlands

Payment services such as Klarna, Riverty and Billink give online shoppers the option to make purchases and then pay for them later. Essentially, consumers are borrowing money from the payment service, which they then have to pay back within three months.

However, these services do not have to meet strict requirements imposed on other lenders such as banks, as they charge little to no interest. "There is no test to see if the loan is a good idea for you," Teun van der Velden, manager of the credit team at the AFM, told NOS. This means that many people start accumulating debt when they use the “buy now, pay later” system too often.

If users are not able to make the payments within the given time period, they have to pay reminder costs. According to NOS, certain pay-later services earn 40 percent of their revenue from these penalties.

Ban on delayed-payment system in the physical Dutch stores

The AFM finds it worrying that Klarna and Adyen want to offer the pay-later option in physical stores via card machines as well. Often when people use this system to shop on the internet, they just want to try on clothing items so they have less risk with returns. "Offline, that argument no longer applies," said Van der Velden. "In that case, a financial necessity applies much more often: I don't actually have the money, so I press the “pay later” option. Then the problems quickly arise."

New European regulations, coming into effect from November 2026, will apply stricter rules to pay-later providers in the Netherlands and require supervision from the AFM. However, many parties think this should be done sooner rather than later. The State Secretary for Legal Protection Teun Struycken has previously said that the stricter rules cannot be implemented sooner. He will respond to the motion of the House of Representatives to ban the pay later system from physical stores in November.

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