Microsoft met with criticism over BNPL plans for Edge

Microsoft’s plans to grab a piece of the buy now, pay later (BNPL) segment have been met with growing criticism.

Microsoft plans to offer a BNPL payment option at browser level

The company recently announced a partnership with Zip (previously Quadpay) to offer a BNPL payment option at browser level. It means any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge can be split into four instalments over six weeks.

When users are on a checkout page, there will be a BNPL option at the point they are prompted to enter their credit card number.

BNPL is currently available in Microsoft Edge Canary and Dev channels and will be available by default to all users in the next Microsoft Edge release.

However, on the Microsoft Edge Insider forums, a number of community members have expressed their discontent at the move.

One community member wrote: “This sounds like an awful idea that will only be seen as a shameless cashgrab and/or bloat by media outlets. I beg you reconsider pushing this to live. The negative press this feature is going to receive isn’t worth it.”

Another person commented: “I love the new Edge and I’ve been using it since it came out. Seriously, don’t support this. No one needs this. BNPL is just an enabler for people who have a problem. No one should finance online purchases that small. This kind of functionality should definitely, 100 percent, not be in any browser ever. Please don’t add to the debt problems people already have.”

Some called for features such as this to be on an opt-in basis at least, while others are concerned about the performance implications for Edge and suggested improving this would be a better focus.