The CARD Act of 2009 made a real difference. Campus tables with free pizza disappeared. Students under 21 couldn’t get approved without a co-signer or proof of income. The number of college credit card accounts dropped 17 percent in the years after the law passed.
But if you think credit card companies just gave up on young people, you haven’t been paying attention.
They didn’t stop. They adapted.
The law banned giving away t-shirts and pizza to get students to sign up. But it didn’t ban reward points, promotional interest rates, or discounts. It didn’t ban digital advertising. It didn’t ban influencer partnerships. It didn’t ban anything that happens on a screen.
So the marketing moved online.
Today, 40 percent of Gen Z discovers credit cards through social media. TikTok videos about “credit card hacks” and “how to maximize points” drive about 20 percent of Gen Z credit card applications. Influencers with millions of followers promote cards as tools for building credit, earning travel rewards, living your best life. Seventy percent of young adults say they trust influencer recommendations.
The pitch sounds different now. It’s not a guy at a folding table offering free pizza. It’s a twentysomething on your phone explaining how she paid for her vacation with points. But the goal is the same: get young people to sign up for credit before they fully understand what they’re getting into.
And then there’s Buy Now, Pay Later.
If you’ve shopped online in the past few years, you’ve seen it. Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm. That little option at checkout that splits your purchase into four easy payments. No interest, as long as you pay on time. No credit check. No co-signer required.
It’s everywhere now. I see it on almost every site I visit.
Last year, 44 percent of Gen Z used a Buy Now, Pay Later service. That’s about 30 million young people. More than half of Gen Z says they prefer BNPL over credit cards. According to one survey, 51 percent of Gen Z says credit cards give them “the ick.”
I get it. Credit cards have a reputation problem. Young people watched their parents struggle with credit card debt. They saw what happened in 2008. They’re suspicious of traditional credit, and BNPL feels different. Simpler. Safer. No big scary credit card bill at the end of the month. Just four small payments.
But here’s what worries me.
Nearly 60 percent of BNPL users admit they’ve used it to buy something they couldn’t otherwise afford. Forty percent say they regretted a purchase once they realized how much they actually owed. One in four have made a late payment. And unlike credit cards, most BNPL services don’t report your payment history to the credit bureaus, which means you can fall behind without it showing up on your credit report. That sounds like a feature until you realize it also means there’s no external signal that you’re getting in over your head.
The CARD Act required credit card companies to verify that young people could actually repay what they borrowed. BNPL has no such requirement. You can sign up with almost no friction, stack multiple BNPL loans from different providers, and end up juggling payments you can’t keep track of.
It’s the campus credit card table, just in app form.
The numbers tell the story.
A 2024 study found that 84 percent of Gen Z consumers between ages 22 and 24 were using credit cards, compared to just 61 percent of millennials at the same age. Gen Z isn’t avoiding credit. They’re using more of it, earlier.
And they’re struggling with it. Gen Z has higher credit card balances and higher delinquency rates than millennials did at the same age. In 2025, credit card delinquency rates for Americans under 40 are approaching 10 percent. Gen Z experienced a 20 percent year-over-year increase in personal debt in early 2025, the fastest of any generation.
The CARD Act closed some doors. But the industry found new ones.
There’s a quote I keep coming back to from one financial expert: “If you find yourself in that trap, it can be so hard to get out of.”
That’s what I experienced in my twenties. That’s what millions of young people are experiencing right now, just through different products and different channels.
The frictionless checkout. The tap of a phone. The “four easy payments” that add up faster than you expect. The influencer who makes it all look aspirational. None of it feels like the aggressive campus marketing of the 1990s. But the result is the same: young people taking on debt before they understand the cost.
I’ve tried to teach my own kids about this. We’ve talked about how BNPL works, how credit cards work, why “four easy payments” is a marketing strategy, not a financial plan. And the thing that gives me some hope is that they’ve started teaching other kids. They’re making videos for YouTube and TikTok, explaining how these schemes work.
They’re part of a generation that’s being targeted more aggressively and more creatively than any generation before them. But they’re also part of a generation that has access to information, if they know where to look.
The question is whether enough of them will find it in time.
Sources
- CARD Act provisions and effects: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Government Accountability Office
- 40% of Gen Z discover credit cards via social media: Statista, 2024
- TikTok “credit card hacks” drive 20% of Gen Z applications: Forbes, 2025
- 70% of young adults trust influencer recommendations: Statista, 2024
- 44% of Gen Z used Buy Now Pay Later last year (~30 million people): Fortune, 2025
- 51% of Gen Z say credit cards give them “the ick”: Afterpay survey, 2025
- 60% of BNPL users bought something they couldn’t otherwise afford; 40% regretted purchases: Motley Fool 2025 Buy Now, Pay Later Trends Report
- 84% of Gen Z (ages 22-24) use credit cards vs 61% of millennials at same age: TransUnion “Solving for Z” study, 2024
- Gen Z has higher balances and delinquency rates than millennials at same age: TransUnion; Federal Reserve Bank of New York
- Credit card delinquency rates for under-40 approaching 10%: Federal Reserve Bank of New York; WebProNews, 2025
- Gen Z 20% year-over-year increase in personal debt (early 2025): CoinLaw credit card debt statistics
- “If you find yourself in that trap, it can be so hard to get out of”: Allyson Kiel, private wealth advisor at Synovus Bank, quoted in Fortune