Companies involved in embedded finance need to “nail affordability” as the cost-of-living crisis continues, the chief executive of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Zilch has said.

UK inflation hit nine per cent last month, its highest level in 40 years, according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.

Philip Belamant warned that the impacts of rising inflation are “not going to change” for the short to medium term.

He said that if businesses assess affordability with “old school” data methods which lead to credit card scores, this can have a negative impact on a person for life.

Belamant also said it was important to provide customer finance whenever they need it, without discriminating as to who is able to have access.

The chief exec believes it’s smarter for people to use credit for non-discretionary items like groceries, instead of clothes, which he said would simply be “thrown into landfill” in 12 months’ time.

Ripsy Bandourian, head of Europe at FinTech platform Plaid, said that while Open Banking makes operations in financial services “easier to run”, it is important for companies to work out how to pass this on to the customer in order to make services more affordable.

While Open Banking makes operations easier to run, it’s about finding out how to pass that onto the customer to make it more affordable for them.

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