소액후불결제(BNPL) 활성화를 위한 국내외 규제 및 개선과제 연구

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is emerging as a major payment method in e-commerce worldwide. BNPL has attracted attention because it has grown rapidly in the blind spots of existing financial regulations enabled by fintech technology and because the proportion of financially vulnerable users is high. Many overseas countries are promoting legislation to establish regulatory frameworks that take these characteristics into account, and many are preparing to implement laws already enacted. In Korea, BNPL was launched in 2021 after being designated as an Innovative Financial Service, and in response to the need for regulatory improvement, the Electronic Financial Transactions Act and the Financial Consumer Protection Act were revised, laying the legal and institutional foundation for financial consumer protection and stable market operation. Nevertheless, the domestic BNPL market has not grown as quickly as overseas markets, and the following improvement measures are proposed to revitalize BNPL. First, the sharing of delinquency information arising from BNPL transactions can contribute to preventing consumers' excessive debt burdens and achieving the goal of inclusive finance. Therefore, it is necessary to set certain standards for BNPL delinquency information so that it can be shared with financial institutions. Second, the Electronic Financial Transactions Act imposes entry barriers, most notably by limiting BNPL to a concurrent line of business that only licensed issuers of prepaid payment instruments may undertake, thereby impeding market entry for new fintech firms. Therefore, it is necessary to lower these barriers, for example by introducing a “small licence” that recognises BNPL as an independent line of business. Third, the current Financial Consumer Protection Act uniformly applies intermediary rules to all financial products, which hinders the expansion of the BNPL business; these regulations therefore need to be subdivided to reflect BNPL’s particular risk profile. It is expected that market development will take place while maintaining the inclusiveness and innovation of domestic BNPL services, through continuous monitoring of foreign legislative and regulatory trends.