What Sezzle Inc. told the SEC could break it.

On June 9, 2025 Sezzle sued Shopify in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleging monopolistic and anticompetitive practices that stifle BNPL competition on Shopify's e-commerce platform — surfacing a platform-access dependency and litigation-outcome uncertainty.

“On June 9, 2025, we filed a lawsuit against Shopify, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota asserting federal and state antitrust violations. The lawsuit alleges that Shopify has been engaging and continues to engage in monopolistic and anticompetitive business practices in order to stifle competition for “buy now, pay later” service options on Shopify's e-commerce platform.”

Sezzle relies on its originating bank partner's federal authority (FDIA Section 27) to set interest rates nationwide; a successful legal challenge to the bank-partner model under CFPB supervision or state lending/usury laws could render its lending impermissible.

“Section 27 allows an FDIC-insured bank such as our originating bank partner to charge interest to consumers on a nationwide basis based on the rate allowed by the state where the bank is located. We rely on our originating banking partner's authority under federal law to establish interest rates and charge interest on the loans our originating bank partner originates through the Sezzle Platform.”

Sezzle relies on its originating bank partner model to originate a substantial majority of loans on the platform; the agreement is non-exclusive and subject to termination by the partner upon certain events, concentrating a critical operational dependency in one bank.

“We rely on our originating bank partner for a substantial majority of the loans facilitated on the Sezzle Platform and if this relationship is successfully challenged or deemed impermissible, we could be found to be in violation of licensing, interest rate limit, lending, or brokering laws and face pen”