Installment payments power Singles Day shopping spree: Lexin

Shoppers are increasingly choosing to pay for online purchases by installments, according to LexinFintech Holdings, a consumer finance service provider.

Six out of 10 users that placed orders on its installment finance platform Fenqile are born after 1995.

Fenqile, which means “Installment Pleasure” literally in Chinese, lets consumers buy electronic devices such as mobile phones and consumer accessories such as handbags on credit and repay the loan in installments.

Transactions made on the Shenzhen-based platform tripled during the annual Singles Day shopping spree on Sunday.

The average order amount per user on the platform during this year’s festival stood at 2,700 yuan (US$387.8) and the number of Fenqile users who participated in this event jumped by 50 percent year-on-year, LexinFintech said.

Data from the Nasdaq-listed company shows that the generation born after the 1995 have become the driving force for this style of consumption, accounting for more than three fifths of the total users adopting to pay by installments.