{"id":623773,"date":"2026-10-07T22:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623773\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:58:10","slug":"motorists-putting-fuel-on-afterpay-as-prices-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623773\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorists putting fuel on Afterpay as prices rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another said that fuel purchases through Afterpay had been a problem for some time. The financial mentor said people were having to choose between fuel and food because there was not enough money to pay for everything they needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cClients I am currently working with will not enter into a repayment plan with Afterpay as they depend on Afterpay to pay for food and\/or fuel on the regular. It is a vicious debt trap for many who rely on it for the essentials.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Z Energy said people chose different payment methods for a variety of reasons. \u201cOur focus is on providing customers with a range of payment options and the flexibility to choose what works best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fincap, the network for financial mentors, agreed people were increasingly turning to buy now pay later (BNPL) services<\/a> for food and fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing BNPL loans for essentials<\/a> that are required at least every week can cause people to end up in a debt treadmill where they are borrowing to make ends meet and find it extremely difficult to find their way out of. It is a great time to speak to a financial mentor if you feel this is your only option to get by.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recommend more is done to ensure buy now, pay later loans are not unaffordable from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterpay said people had been using credit cards for purchases for decades and Afterpay was increasingly seen as a better alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it\u2019s important for all consumers to have access to a safe, simple and transparent solution like Afterpay that helps them budget and manage their spending, for everyday items like groceries or one-off purchases like a new refrigerator. Afterpay is a free service for customers who pay on time, and a safer, more affordable alternative to traditional credit, which can charge interest rates of more than 20%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have strong consumer safeguards built into our product, including responsible spending rules to help ensure customers don\u2019t revolve in debt, and if a customer misses an instalment payment, their account is paused. In addition, late fees are fixed, capped, and don\u2019t accumulate or compound over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Centrix\u2019s latest update showed buy, now pay later arrears at 7.1%, but 4% below last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another said that fuel purchases through Afterpay had been a problem for some time. The financial mentor said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[67066,806,138,813,2678,51720,111,139,69,90,12937,29158,1436,812],"class_list":["post-623773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-afterpay","tag-as","tag-business","tag-edmunds","tag-fuel","tag-motorists","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-prices","tag-putting","tag-rise","tag-susan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}