In May 2025, a shopper split a $180 online order into four payments and thought nothing of it. It was the fifth Affirm purchase that quarter. What changed was invisible at the register: that Pay-in-4 loan posted to a TransUnion file as a tagged tradeline, the first time a loan like it had been written down where a credit model could read it. One tagged line turns a whole category of borrowing that scoring systems used to ignore into data that can be measured, scored, and sold. For investors, the event splits into two questions: who profits from selling the new data, and who becomes the data.

Key Takeaways

  • The catalyst is dated. Affirm Holdings began furnishing all pay-over-time loans to Experian on April 1, 2025 and to TransUnion on May 1, 2025; a 500,000-consumer FICO study from February 2025 produced FICO Score 10 BNPL, slated for fall 2025.
  • Beneficiaries Fair Isaac Corporation and TransUnion gain a new tradeline category to monetize, priced very differently: FICO near 35 times earnings against TransUnion’s roughly 20 times.
  • Affirm and SoFi Technologies sit on both sides, moving from an unscored loan book toward a scored one. Transparency strengthens responsible-lending positioning while exposing patterns underwriters could not previously see. The read is balanced, not a call.

The Catalyst, Dated And Concrete

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) lending grew for years inside a blind spot. The loans were short, often interest-free, and rarely reported, so a borrower could carry several at once without any of them surfacing. That changed on a schedule. Affirm started furnishing every pay-over-time loan to Experian on April 1, 2025, including the Pay-in-4 product that had been the category’s most invisible piece, then extended identical reporting to TransUnion on May 1, 2025.

The data arrives tagged and segmented, not yet folded into the legacy scores most lenders pull. For a lender, a furnished tradeline is the difference between approving an applicant whose file hides four open installment loans and one where those loans are visible line items priced into the decision. The information existed before. Now it sits where underwriting systems can reach it.

What FICO’s Study Actually Found

Before building a new score, FICO ran the numbers. The company studied roughly 500,000 consumers over 12 months using Affirm loan data, modeling what would happen once BNPL tradelines were included. For more than 85% of consumers, the simulated score moved within 10 points either way. Consumers with five or more loans saw scores hold flat or tick higher, cutting against the assumption that frequent BNPL use signals distress.

The study became a product. FICO Score 10 BNPL and FICO Score 10 T BNPL are the first major-provider scores to incorporate BNPL data, available in fall 2025 alongside existing models at no added FICO fee. Benzinga’s coverage of how FICO adds Buy Now, Pay Later data frames it as a clearer underwriting picture, not a replacement.

The Beneficiary Side: Selling The New Tradeline

A scored data category reprices a data business. BNPL was a behavior these firms watched borrowers repeat but could not score, so they could not fully monetize it. Tagging the tradelines and scoring them turns an unpriced behavior into a sellable input, and the names that own that conversion sit on the sell side.

Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO)

Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) owns the model itself. It reported fiscal second-quarter 2026 revenue of $692 million, up 39% year over year, GAAP earnings per share (EPS) of 11.14, and full-year guidance near 35.60. The stock trades around 35 times earnings. A BNPL score is incremental modeling surface layered onto lenders who already pull FICO. The premium multiple is the risk: at 35 times earnings, the price already discounts steady adoption.

TransUnion (TRU)

TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) is the counterparty Affirm furnishes to, the pipe the data flows through. The bureau reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $1,246 million, up 14%, and trades near 20 times trailing earnings, roughly half FICO’s multiple. The risk is timing. BNPL tradelines sit tagged and excluded from legacy scores, so monetization is a forward option, not a booked line. Equifax (EFX) sits in the same beneficiary bucket as the third bureau.

The Both-Sided Names: Becoming The Data

Transparency cuts both ways. When BNPL loans were invisible, a borrower could stack four or five across providers and no underwriter saw the pile. The same furnishing that lets a responsible borrower build credit also surfaces the loan stacking that could prompt lenders to tighten the category. Benzinga has reported on how BNPL balances now feed a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio and complicate a mortgage. The originators that furnish the data are scored by it too.

Affirm Holdings (AFRM)

Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM) is the central furnishing counterparty. It reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 revenue of $1,038.8 million, up 33%, gross merchandise volume (GMV) of 11.6 billion, up 35%, and net income of 102.9 million, or $0.30 per share, reaching GAAP profitability. Furnishing its full book supports a responsible-lending posture, and Benzinga’s reporting on the Buy Now, Pay Later habits the new scores capture treats that as a maturing category. The same disclosure exposes loan stacking that could tighten approvals if delinquency data turns. Both readings follow from one decision to report.

SoFi Technologies (SOFI)

SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI) draws the diversified-lender contrast. BNPL is one line inside a chartered bank that also originates personal loans, student loans, and mortgages. It reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $1.1 billion, up 43%, net income of 166.7 million, and EPS of 0.12. A lender that originates loans and consumes bureau data to underwrite them sits on both sides at once. PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) and Block occupy the same dual position across the wider field.

Catalysts To Watch

The split turns measurable over the next several quarters.

  • Lender adoption of FICO Score 10 BNPL through 2026. The signal is the count of lenders that publicly run it, since the most widely used FICO model still dates to 2009 and adoption can take years.
  • Whether bureaus move BNPL tradelines from tagged-and-excluded to scored. The signal is any decision to include them in widely pulled models.
  • Equifax’s furnishing timeline as the third bureau. The signal is when Equifax receives the same full furnishing Affirm gives Experian and TransUnion.
  • Originator GMV and delinquency prints. The signal is the trend in disclosed BNPL delinquency against continued GMV growth.

What The Split Means For Positioning

One event reads two ways. FICO and the bureaus gain a new attribute to license, priced at multiples that already discount adoption. Affirm and SoFi become more legible to those models, which both supports a responsible-lending story and surfaces risk that was hidden. Neither read is a recommendation. An invisible loan category is being written into the scored record, and the firms touching it reprice around that fact at different speeds.

The moment to watch is narrow. The catalyst becomes revenue rather than a headline the first quarter a lender publicly underwrites on FICO Score 10 BNPL and says so on an earnings call. Until then, the new tradeline is a line in a file waiting to be priced.

Image credit: Author

Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.