[naturalauction]

This exists in the EU and Switzerland too, look at Klarna. They take 3% of a transaction from the merchant (depends on the country) and charge no interest fees at all for the end user. Even a financially responsible buyer might find it worth paying off later since there is no interest.

[phlo]

Oh, I have no doubt that there are situations where it may make sense to buy things on credit. Houses and cars can often be financed at good conditions. I've yet to see an example where this applies to small purchases.

Klarna offers a variety of payment methods. The 30-day factoring looks fine (3% charged to the merchant, no interest to buyers). But as far as I can tell, any financing they offer beyond 30 days comes with significant interest. Their product page for Ratenkauf [1] says "Es fallen Zinsen an." ("Interest is charged"). When I look at their demo store [2], they indicate a 10.43% APR for a €400 purchase paid over 12 months. This, of course, falls on the right side of the law and has a pretty small risk of ruining people -- still, I don't think there are many scenarios where you'll end up better off after paying 10% interest on anything.

[1] https://www.klarna.com/de/verkaeufer/produkte/ratenkauf/ [2] https://www.klarna.com/demo/de/de-DE/kp/p-sunglasses-de/. You'll have to add the sunglasses to your cart and proceed to checkout.