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Buy now, pay later has reached the public securitization market in Europe.
KKR put Alps Partners Germany ABS 2026-1 on screens last week. It is a landmark deal, offering investors a chance to buy loans originated under KKR’s forward flow with PayPal. It is also the first BNPL securitization in Europe.
But BNPL and what people imagine it to be can differ.
In some ways the receivables in the KKR deal look a lot more like regular consumer loans than the stereotype of BNPL - whimsically drawn, interest free, very short dated, point-of-sale financings.
The Alps portfolio is point-of-sale originations but most of the loans bear interest and pay in instalments. There are some short-term loans in there, but well over half the pool is either loans of 12 months (35%) or 24 months (40.4%).
As Tom Hall gets into here, some structural innovations in the deal push the market forwards. It’s arguably a good portfolio to be innovative with, because it is high quality. Indeed, 90% of the deal is rated triple-A by Fitch and DBRS.
But it is not the most complex securitization of consumer receivables in recent times. In late 2025, Spanish retailer El Corte Inglés teamed up with Santander to issue Secucor Finance 2025-1. There were 13 types of loans backing that trade, including some with similar structures to BNPL.
Is the trajectory towards a public securitization of more stereotypical BNPL? Questions remain unanswered and one of them is pricing.
Pricing will come this week for KKR’s deal and as it is a new asset class there’s no like-for-like comparison. But if the evidence of last week is anything to go on, there’s plenty of enthusiasm for consumer ABS.
Most comparably to KKR, Auxmoney tightened its German deal, Fortuna 2026-2, from IPTs in the mid 70bp to price 69bp. In sterling, there were strong results for debutant Lendable and Barclays’ securitization of Admiral-originated loans.
