loan sharks? Seriously? Make payments on time and you don't pay any interest, miss payments and you get defaults on your credit score and penalty charges, which you will also be on the receiving end of if you miss payments on any of the following: mortgage payments, car loans, bank loans, credit card repayments, you'll also be hit with penalty charges if you don't have the funds for a direct debit and woe betide if you go into an overdraft where you'll now be paying 40+% interest due to the regulator mandating a standard interest rate for arranged and unarranged overdrafts, in their delusion they thought it would lower charges, when anyone with a grain of common sense could see that it would lead to the banks gouging everyone with abandon.....
Don't like Microsoft but the pile on seems to come because BNPL gets used by young folk and those on limited incomes, seems a form of snobbery tbh....some of it also driven by banks trying to kill the "upstart" competition to their control of the lending levers, can't have the little folk getting above themselves, have to keep them in their place subject to high interest rates, whereas those with hefty incomes can borrow at virtually zero interest.....