Welcome to Clearpay!

It’s great to have you on board as a merchant offering Clearpay! By integrating with us, you will be offering your customers more ways to pay, which is great news for your customers.

The next step is to promote Clearpay on your channels! Here you’ll find everything you need to know about how to promote Clearpay in the right way.

The right way

There are two sets of rules that apply to you as a merchant whenever you mention Clearpay:

1. Financial promotions rules; and
2. Advertising Standards.

To help you comply with these rules, we’ve created approved language, assets, disclaimers and marketing rules for you to use and follow.

If you want to use your own language to describe or promote Clearpay, amend any of our assets, or not follow the rules on this page you should submit your marketing for review and approval by Clearpay.

Advertising Standards

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) publishes rules and guidance applicable to all advertising, including specific guidance for advertising Buy Now Pay Later that you can read here. You are responsible for complying with these rules and guidance, and failure to follow these rules could lead to an investigation and sanctions by the ASA.

Important ASA rules include:

• Advertising must be fair, clear and not misleading.
• Advertising must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society.
• Advertising of BNPL must make clear that BNPL is a form of credit.
• Advertising of BNPL must be set out in a way that allows it to be understood easily by the audience being addressed.
• Advertising should not take advantage of consumers' inexperience or credulity.
• Advertising must state the nature of the contract being offered, any limitation, expense, penalty or charge and the terms of withdrawal.

To help you, our approved language, assets, disclaimers and rules have been designed to comply with ASA rules, so we encourage you to use them!

Financial Promotions

​​A financial promotion is any communication that invites or induces a consumer to engage in certain types of controlled activities – including taking out a short-term loan with Clearpay. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates advertising for most financial services including BNPL products, and requires that all financial promotions must be fair, clear and not misleading.

Most mentions of Clearpay will be a ‘financial promotion’ requiring approval by an FCA approved person. This requirement applies to merchants offering Clearpay regardless of whether they are regulated by the FCA. It doesn’t matter that Clearpay is providing the loan – by offering it as a payment method, you are making a financial promotion. Failing to do this is a criminal offence in the UK and may attract a fine and/or imprisonment for company directors or other unauthorised persons.

If you use only our approved language and follow our rules on disclaimers, then you can consider your communication to have FCA approved person approval. However, if you modify any language or do not follow disclaimer rules, you will need a separate approval that we can arrange for you.

Approved Language

You can use any of the phrases below to promote or describe Clearpay:

Shop now. Pay it in 4 interest-free instalments. Choose Clearpay. 

Shop now. Pay it in 4 interest-free instalments over 6 weeks. Choose Clearpay. 

Shop now. Pay it in 4. Choose Clearpay. 

Pay it in 4. Choose Clearpay. 

Choose Clearpay. 

Clearpay available.

Clearpay available at checkout. 

£XXX or 4 interest-free instalments of £XXX with Clearpay. 

If you want to change any language, or use your own language, to describe or promote Clearpay, you should submit this for review and approval by Clearpay by emailing [email protected]. We aim to review your marketing as soon as possible and always within 5 working days.

Disclaimers

Whenever you mention Clearpay, you should include an appropriate disclaimer. The correct disclaimer to use will depend on where you’re promoting Clearpay:

For emails and landing pages use:

Please use Clearpay responsibly. Clearpay lends you a fixed amount of credit so you can pay for your purchase over 4 instalments, due every 2 weeks. You must be 18+ and a permanent UK resident (excl Channel Islands). T&Cs and other eligibility criteria apply.

Ensure you can make repayments on time. Clearpay charges a £6 late fee for each late instalment and a further £6 if it’s still unpaid 7 days later. Late fees are capped at £6 for orders under £24 and the lower of £36 or 25% of the order value for orders over £24. Missed payments may affect your ability to use Clearpay in the future and they may pass unpaid debt to a debt collection agency.

Note: T&Cs must hyperlink to clearpay.co.uk/terms or you must include the webpage URL.

For all other forms of advertising other than television use the longest disclaimer that fits in the ad:

• Clearpay lends you a fixed amount of credit to allow you to pay for your purchase over 4 instalments. Late fees chargeable. T&Cs and eligibility criteria apply clearpay.co.uk/terms

• Clearpay is credit. T&Cs & late fees apply clearpay.co.uk/terms

• [only for push notifications] T&Cs & late fees apply clearpay.co.uk/terms

For television ads (including television on demand) please contact Clearpay for individual review and approval.

The following rules must be followed when using the above disclaimers:

• Disclaimers must be sufficiently large, prominent and in high contrast to the background to both be legible and noticeable to the viewer.
• For ads that contain assets and descriptions, appropriate disclaimers must appear in both.
• For videos, disclaimers must appear from the moment that Clearpay is mentioned and be held for long enough to be comfortably read in full by the viewer.

Best Practice Assets

We have produced UK assets for you to use across your channels. These are contained in our Retailer Kit that you can download from our Retailer Resources Page! 

For some assets, you’ll see that we’ve already included an appropriate disclaimer for you!

Marketing Rules

There are some other rules that you need to follow when marketing - whether you’re using our approved language or your own (and submitting it for review and approval).

Encourage responsible spending

It’s important that customers use Clearpay in a responsible way by considering their purchases and ensuring they can afford their repayments. This way, they avoid late fees and stay on top of their finances!

With this in mind, you should ensure that any marketing or ads that mention Clearpay DO NOT encourage consumers to:

• Trivialise their purchase decision;
• Spend in a careless or compulsive manner;
• Make large or expensive purchases beyond a consumers normal spending habits; 
• Spend to improve their mood;
• Use Clearpay as a solution to their financial problems; or
• Use Clearpay to make a purchase because they don’t have the funds to make the purchase upfront (this includes referencing Clearpay to bridge the gap between paydays).

When considering your ad in light of these principles, be aware that it applies to your whole ad, not just the part that mentions Clearpay. This is to avoid inferring things that could breach advertising rules.

Influencers

If you want to use influencers to promote Clearpay, you must first obtain approval from Clearpay by emailing the Clearpay marketing team at [email protected].

Other rules

DO comply with Advertising Standards in your ads. It is your responsibility to understand and apply the laws governing the advertising of BNPL products.

DO NOT target under 18s, those with debt problems, or any other vulnerable group in any ad mentioning Clearpay.

DO NOT mention the speed or ease of using Clearpay.

DO NOT mention any of the following in any ad that mentions Clearpay:

• Gambling
• Criminal activity
• Overtly sexual material
• Payday lending
• Overspending
• Unmanageable debt
• Illegal drugs

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