Recently, you may have noticed that when you buy almost anything online - clothing, furniture, even groceries - there's an option to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). This usually means splitting the total cost of your purchase into a series of smaller payments, and it doesn't require a credit card up front. The BNPL business is taking off as a payment alternative, thanks in part to Affirm. Affirm is a financial company that allows its 14 million active consumers to pay for purchases over time, without a credit check and without late fees.
In this episode of Leadership Next, hosts Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt speak with Affirm's founder and CEO Max Levchin. Levchin, also a co-founder of PayPal, struggled to build credit in the U.S. after immigrating from Ukraine. He shares how this led him to eventually found Affirm and shares his hopes for making financial services more equitable. He also explains how Affirm plans to make money without collecting late fees, and discusses the ups and downs the company has experienced since its January 2021 IPO.