Offer customers flexible payment plans, but stipulate that work only begins after full payment. This de-risks your business from non-payment. Often, customers will opt to pay faster upfront to avoid the delay, solving your cash flow problem.

Affirm's CEO suggests competitors don't report payment data to credit bureaus as a business strategy. By keeping delinquencies off the 'permanent record,' they can implicitly encourage late payments, from which they profit via fees. Affirm, having no late fees, advocates for full reporting.

CoreWeave’s project debt is structured with a "box" system for maximum lender security. Customer payments flow into a controlled account where a waterfall automatically pays for operating expenses and lender debt (principal and interest) before CoreWeave itself receives any profit, minimizing lender risk.

The dramatic rise in BNPL usage across all demographics, including 41% of young shoppers, is a negative forward-looking indicator. While framed as innovation, it's a form of modern usury that reveals consumers cannot afford their purchases, creating a significant, under-discussed credit risk for the economy.

Merchants pay BNPL providers like Affirm more than credit card processors for three key benefits: converting hesitant buyers ('incremental sales'), ensuring high approval rates so the option is useful, and protecting their brand from association with lenders who charge punitive fees.

With many "Buy Now, Pay Later" (BNPL) services not reporting to credit bureaus, lenders face "stacking" risk where consumers take on invisible debt. To get a holistic view, lenders are increasingly incorporating cash flow data, like checking account trends, into their underwriting processes.

Affirm's CEO argues the core flaw of credit cards is not high APRs, but a business model that profits from consumer mistakes. Lenders are incentivized by compounding interest and late fees, meaning they benefit when customers take longer to pay and stumble.

In B2B transactions, the payer wants to delay payment to manage float, while the receiver wants funds immediately. This adversarial dynamic incentivizes the use of slow systems like paper checks, hindering modernization that benefits both parties in consumer payments.

Significant float revenue in payroll doesn't come from the 1-2 day gap before paying employees. It's generated by holding the large sums of money withheld for taxes (e.g., for the IRS) for extended periods—often weeks—before they are due for remittance to government agencies.