COVER STORY: Buy Now Pay Later Debt Will Soon Hit $1 Billion. How Sustainable Is The Model?, page-11

I think the key element that the article is wilfully omitting is that late fees and bad debt write-offs go hand in hand. The amount that AfterPay recovers in late fees is less than what it is writing off on bad debts. If AfterPay did not receive any late fees (as suggested by the authors), it would actually be more profitable than it currently is as this would imply that all of its customers are always paying on time (in line with how the service is designed) and it would therefore not be incurring any bad debts expense. This is a point which has been made by Eisen/Molnar (I can't remember which one), so I also find the authors claim that the company was unwilling to comment on this issue quite surprising.