Community groups are calling on the Government to take urgent action after revelations some alcohol stores are allowing customers to use buy now pay later services.
The Government is considering regulating the sector but while that's being considered, community groups say harm is being caused.
An Auckland liquor store which advertised the Afterpay service didn't want to comment on Friday, but locals did.
"I think it's targeting the wrong audience, people who don't know much about it might pursue it and then won't know the situation they are finding themselves in," one said.
Communities Against Alcohol Harm secretary Grant Hewison says "communities, particularly in vulnerable areas, will have very serious concerns about this method of payment".
It comes as one in five Kiwis now use a form of buy now pay later to buy goods.
"To have a buy now pay later account, you don't have to have any type of credit assessment, so it could mean that really vulnerable consumers could be accessing buy now pay later to purchase alcohol," Consumer NZ’s Gemma Rasmussen says.
"The Government tightened credit laws to protect people from harmful lending but have yet to clamp down on Afterpay type services," Rasmussen saids.
"For anything like alcohol, gambling, anything like that it really doesn't seem like a good idea or a wise service to be offered for those type of things."
Commerce Minister David Clark says he's concerned about buy now pay later's potential to cause financial hardship and this example does nothing to build social licence for these products.
Submissions on potential regulation closed last year, but since then, nothing has happened.
A spokesman for Clark says he'll take recommendations to Cabinet "soon".
Hewison says a number of organisations made very strong submissions to put in place those regulations "so look I think for the Government this is a bit of a trigger, and they could move more quickly.
"The sale and supply of alcohol act which governs liquor stores, it may even be contrary to the act, that is around the safe and responsible sale of alcohol."
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