Bank Of Thailand Approves BNPL Licence Rules As Users Reach 6 Million In Four Years

BANGKOK — The Bank of Thailand has approved a draft framework to bring buy now, pay later lending under central bank supervision, with a public consultation due by the end of September and implementation targeted for the fourth quarter.

Operators will need a specific licence to continue offering BNPL services. The draft caps interest at 15 to 20 percent, limits credit lines to 20,000 baht per user and sets a minimum age of 18 to 20. Existing providers that cannot comply will have to close. The Financial Institutions Policy Committee has approved the broad approach, and an initial assessment identified around six major BNPL providers operating in Thailand.

Existing operators will be given time to prepare applications.

The cap is not obviously a cap

The interest ceiling is the detail most likely to be reported as a crackdown. It is more complicated than that.

BNPL lenders in Thailand currently operate under two arrangements. Licensed digital lending operators may assess borrowers using alternative data, lend up to 20,000 baht and charge up to 25 percent. General loan providers face no lending limit but are capped at 15 percent.

A single ceiling of 15 to 20 percent therefore sits below the first regime and at or above the second. For some operators it is a reduction. For others it is a harmonisation that leaves room to charge more than the 15 percent they can charge today. Which it turns out to be depends on where in the range the final figure lands — and that has not been decided.

The 20,000-baht credit line, likewise, matches the limit digital lending operators already work to.

What the framework actually changes

The substantive shift is elsewhere, and it has nothing to do with pricing.

Under Thai law as it stands, BNPL transactions are not classified as loans. That places them outside the central bank's direct jurisdiction, and — more importantly — outside the National Credit Bureau. BNPL borrowing is not reported there, which means it does not appear in the household debt figures Thailand uses to assess financial stability, and it does not appear when a bank checks an applicant's record.

Governor Vitai Ratanakorn has described the resulting exposure as sitting off the radar, and has said the central bank's priority is finding a route to bring these businesses under supervision and close the structural gap.

Once BNPL lending is licensed, it becomes visible. Every subsequent debate about Thai household debt will be conducted with a number that includes it.

The scale of what has been invisible

The growth figures explain the urgency.

BNPL accounts rose from about 600,000 in 2021 to 4.91 million by the end of 2024, expanding at close to 100 percent a year, on central bank data drawn from major operators. Transaction value has grown at an average of 38 percent a year. Current reporting puts users at around six million.

None of that has been captured in the credit bureau.

Who is borrowing

The demographic pattern is what has alarmed the regulator.

Vitai has said roughly 25 million people in Thailand carry debt. Among those aged 20 to 35, more than half — 52.7 percent — already have debt, and 27 percent of that group's borrowing is classified as non-performing. Separate figures accompanying the new framework indicate that 45 percent of young consumers took on their first debt through BNPL.

Vitai has been careful not to condemn the product itself, saying BNPL should not be treated as a "villain" and that the central bank's concern is with lending models that make borrowing too easy for particular groups.

His illustrations have been unusually specific. He has pointed to instalment plans taken out on a 106-baht bubble tea and a 50-baht chicken rice meal, repaid over four months. The concern is not the sum. It is that a four-month repayment schedule on a drink establishes a habit, and the central bank's own research suggests some users do not register that they are borrowing at all — they believe they are selecting a payment method.

The industry on the other side

The affected businesses are not only fintech startups.

Kasikorn Investure, a KBank subsidiary, acquired a 50 percent stake in Atome Thailand in May 2025, a Singapore-based platform that launched in Thailand in 2021. Krungthai Bank's president, Payong Srivanich, has publicly supported a more sustainable framework for a market that expanded rapidly alongside rising household debt.

The central bank has also restructured itself around this. Its first major reorganisation in 27 years created a Financial Consumer Protection and Retail Credit Supervision Group, which will regulate non-bank lenders and products including BNPL. Licence approvals for BNPL businesses have meanwhile been held back pending the new rules.

What to watch

Where in the 15-to-20 percent range the cap settles. The difference between 15 and 20 determines whether this is a tightening or a relaxation for a substantial part of the market. It is the single most consequential number still open, and the consultation is where it will be argued.

Whether BNPL balances are reported to the National Credit Bureau, and from when. This is the change that matters, and it is not guaranteed by licensing alone. If reporting is required, Thailand's published household debt figure will move — and the size of that move is the story nobody can currently estimate.

How many of the six operators survive. Providers unable to meet the requirements must shut down. Whether the market consolidates around bank-affiliated players, and whether that reduces the credit available to the borrowers the rules are meant to protect, is the test of whether the intervention worked.