The AFM licence window turns BNPL into a question of role, proof, cash, and consumer care.
A small webshop owner knows the moment well. The customer has chosen the jacket, the basket looks healthy, and the last question is payment. Card, iDEAL, or buy now, pay later. The screen calls it convenience. The Dutch checkout credit sales button is starting to carry another meaning: a role that has to be proved.
The signal has to become readable
On 18 June 2026, the AFM opened licence applications under the revised Consumer Credit Directive, CCDII. The date that matters is 20 November 2026. From then, the AFM says previously exempt forms such as BNPL and other deferred-payment services will fall under the Wft.
This is a founder question first, and a legal one second. The first test is simple: what does the company actually do in the credit chain? Does it provide credit, intermediate it, shape the checkout, or only host a payment button?
The button has a legal role
The AFM names several routes. Providers of deferred-payment services, deferred debit cards, and certain hire or lease agreements with a purchase option need to assess whether article 2:60 Wft applies. Large intermediaries in short-term BNPL credit must look, with providers, at article 2:81 Wft registration. Other intermediaries may face article 2:80 Wft if no exception, exemption, or registration route fits.
The answer depends on role. A small retailer that simply offers a partner payment method sits differently from a platform that shapes onboarding, messaging, acceptance, reminders, or data flows. The checkout wording, the contracts behind it, and the way customer data moves can all matter.
What the signal changes
That uncertainty matters because Overheid.nl records the Dutch implementation bill in the Tweede Kamer stage. The bill implements Directive (EU) 2023/2225 and changes the Wft, Book 7 of the Civil Code, and consumer-enforcement law. Early applicants carry cost and timing risk while Parliament finishes the framework. A licence under the new path can take effect only after the implementation law enters into force.
Growth with cautious buyers
BNPL is already a large retail finance channel. The AFM counted about 53 million BNPL transactions in 2024, worth €5.1 billion. BNPL use for online purchases grew by about 17 percent. The same market update recorded about 6.9 million default notices, late fees charged about 1.8 million times, and around 0.6 million transactions transferred to debt collection agencies.
At the same time, Dutch online retail keeps moving. CBS reported that online retail turnover in April 2026 was 5.9 percent higher than a year earlier. Consumer electronics and clothing did even better online. Yet CBS also reported June consumer confidence at -39 and willingness to buy at -22, both far below their twenty-year averages.
DNB expects household consumption to stagnate in 2026. That is the commercial tension. Deferred payment can help a cautious customer complete an order. It can also push cash stress into the reminder, the late fee, the complaint, or the collection letter. For the shop owner with the jackets, the sale is not finished when the conversion dashboard turns green.
Proof will sit in ordinary records
The AFM highlights responsible lending, age verification, and preventive management of payment difficulty as continuing obligations. In practice, those words become concrete inside a small company. Who checks age? Which source is reliable? The AFM mentions iDIN and itsme as examples. Where required, how is BKR consulted? What happens when BKR shows an existing arrears registration?
Responsible lending remains an open norm, and the AFM accepts proportional treatment for credit drawdowns with repayment obligations of no longer than three months. Proportional does not mean empty. The company still needs acceptance rules that work at checkout speed. It needs a way to read the consumer's financial position, not only credit history.
What founders should check
The civil-law side points in the same direction. The Hoge Raad decision ECLI:NL:HR:2025:1008 concerned deferred payment at a webshop. Rechtbank Oost-Brabant, in ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2026:1562, dealt with a Klarna-related claim and recorded information-duty breaches, a 20 percent reduction of the consumer payment obligation, and rejection of extrajudicial collection costs. Weak customer information can weaken recovery.
Margins need a cleaner mirror
For small companies, the hard part is often margin. BNPL can lift checkout conversion, but the true margin is not the basket value. It is basket value after partner fees, refunds, chargebacks, late-payment handling, customer-service time, disputes, collection limits, system changes, verification tools, BKR processes, and possible licence work.
The government sets the maximum credit interest rate at 12 percent from 1 January 2026. It applies to all consumer credit, including short-term credit under three months. That does not turn every retailer into a pricing lawyer. It does mean credit income, late fees, and recovery assumptions now need a cleaner legal and cash view.
This is where the ledger earns its keep. Sales revenue, finance-related income, partner deductions, refunds, collection recoveries, and customer-service costs should be visible enough for management to read the real channel. If BNPL looks profitable only before failed payments and handling costs, the business is reading half a page.
The calm work before November
The useful work now is not theatrical. A founder can map every delayed-payment product, every partner, every group company, every checkout text, every reminder flow, and every party touching customer acceptance. That map will not answer every legal question by itself. It will show where the question lives.
The same owner can then ask a practical question: if the AFM, a court, a payment partner, or a customer asks how this credit route works, can the company show it without improvising? Contracts, customer wording, age checks, acceptance rules, BKR logic, arrears handling, complaint records, and board responsibility need to point in the same direction.
The AFM signal is not a reason to panic, and it is not a reason to freeze a good payment method. It is a reason to stop treating checkout credit as decoration. By 20 November 2026, the small button at the end of the order may carry a much larger duty. The firms that see that early will have more than compliance. They will have a clearer view of trust, cash, and the customer they are choosing to serve.
Sources
- CBS source
- Herziene richtlijn consumentenkrediet: vergunning aanvragen kan nu al
- Overheid.nl Wetgevingskalender – Legislative status of the Dutch implementation law
- Rijksoverheid – Government policy intent on BNPL, minors and foreign providers
- AFM – Three continuing obligations under CCDII
- AFM – AFM licence requirements for credit providers
- AFM – Generic AFM application timing and completeness risk
- AFM – BNPL market scale and payment problems
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