John Lewis chief executive officer Nish Kankiwala has said the retailer will likely develop a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) service in the future.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the executive said: "I think we will develop a Buy Now, Pay Later product. Especially in the younger generation, people expect it.”

Kankiwala, formerly of Hovis and Burger King, was appointed the first ever group chief executive of John Lewis and Waitrose in March. The group previously had separate chief executives for John Lewis and supermarket Waitrose, with both reporting to chair Sharon White. Kankiwala was tasked with turning around the business amid rising costs and now looks to have settled on BNPL as a means of improving the company’s fortunes.

Market leader Klarna and other providers in the BNPL space such as ClearPay allow consumers to buy a product and pay for it later in small instalments. Apple announced plans to launch its own BNPL product for iPhone users earlier this year.

The adoption of BNPL has soared throughout the cost-of-living crisis, with recent research by Forbes revealing that 70 per cent of Brits were using the service as a direct result of increased financial pressures.

However, Forbes found that over a quarter of users said they did not know how much money was going out of their account monthly as a result of paying off their loans, while nearly a third of those surveyed said they were using BNPL for purchases outside their budget.

Forbes’ money expert Laura Howard cautioned at the time: “The lure of being able to buy something immediately should not tempt people into a financial arrangement that they cannot manage or afford.”

Share Story: