Marks & Spencer Builds M&S Pay Credit Scheme

Marks & Spencer is moving into a business its rivals already run at a profit. At its Capital Markets Day on November 10, 2026, the retailer announced M&S Pay, an own-brand flexible credit scheme that will launch in its next financial year. The company has released few details beyond the timing, and the scheme's rates and terms haven't been published.

David Clark, the company's director of online and omnichannel for fashion, home and beauty, told investors the scheme will be embedded in the shopping journey and will let customers spread the cost over installments. His case was arithmetic: one extra shop per year from 10 percent of customers would add £39 million of incremental revenue. Clark joined M&S from Frasers Group in August, which means the executive building the scheme arrived from one of the competitors it targets.

The field he's entering pays well. NEXT, the biggest player in British retail credit, generated £152 million of interest income and £90 million of net profit from its finance arm in the first half of the 2026/27 financial year. Frasers Plus pairs installment credit with loyalty rewards across Sports Direct, Flannels, House of Fraser and Harvey Nichols, interest-free over three months or interest-bearing for up to 36 months. The Very Group's finance revenue rose 7.1 percent to £464.5 million in the year to June 27, 2026, against group revenue of £2.09 billion.

M&S isn't starting from zero. It already sells credit cards through HSBC UK, which trades as M&S Bank, under a seven-year partnership signed in April 2024 covering credit, payments and loyalty, with M&S acting as broker rather than lender. At signing, its two million credit card customers accounted for about 16 percent of turnover. Its shoppers can also already spread payments through Clearpay, Klarna and PayPal's Pay in 3 — third-party rails M&S Pay would bring in-house.

The launch sits inside a wider reset after a hard stretch. The April 2025 cyberattack forced M&S to suspend online sales for about six weeks. Fashion, home and beauty sales rose 17.5 percent to £1,995.4 million in the 26 weeks to September 26, 2026, and adjusted operating profit reached £150.5 million, a 7.5 percent margin — still below the 12 percent margin of two years earlier. Under its Reinvesting for Growth plan, the retailer wants online to reach almost half of fashion, home and beauty sales, up from 35 percent, across an estate of 180 highly productive stores. Chief Executive Stuart Machin told investors the end-to-end transformation is still in its early stages — and a house credit scheme is one more piece of the backbone he's describing.