As Buy Now, Pay Later cools in the West, fintech operator MD Tasin Tyson thinks the obituaries are premature. They’re just being written in the wrong country.
“BNPL isn’t dying. It’s just standing in the wrong country,” Tyson told me. “The future of this category is in South Asia.”
Tyson spent nearly a decade at Coinbase, Payoneer, and Pyypl before founding Kisti, an AI-powered BNPL platform launching in Bangladesh. His core argument is that BNPL means something different there than in California.
“In mature markets, it’s a convenience layer on top of an already functioning credit system,” he said. “In Bangladesh, it’s the credit system itself, for tens of millions who never had one.”
The numbers are striking. Bangladesh has 170 million people, a median age of 26, and 176 million mobile subscribers. Its fintech market is projected to grow from $1.6 billion in 2020 to over $12 billion by 2030. But Tyson focuses on a different figure: an estimated 80% of e-commerce is still cash on delivery.
“That isn’t backwardness. It’s unmet demand for trusted digital credit. Solve it, and you don’t just win market share. You expand the entire market.”
On the Western pain points, he’s dismissive. Saturation? “The category barely exists in Bangladesh.” Margins? “Merchants happily pay 4 to 8%, because BNPL creates a sale that cash on delivery would have killed.” Regulation? “Bangladesh Bank actively wants BNPL to build the credit histories the country lacks. That’s a regulator holding the door open.”
The hard problem, he says, is underwriting people with no credit history, and that’s where AI comes in. “Alternative data scoring extends credit where a bank sees a blank file. Start modest, reward repayment, let trust compound.” Kisti is interest-free and Sharia-friendly by design, which matters in a Muslim-majority market.
He frames it for investors as pure asymmetry. “Tabby and Tamara built multi-billion-dollar valuations on this thesis. Bangladesh is the same setup, with three times the population and a fraction of the competition.”
“The next billion fintech users aren’t in California. They’re in South Asia, holding a smartphone, an unmet need, and no credit history. Whoever earns their trust first wins.”
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