Apple Pay Later, the company’s take on the buy now, pay later (BNPL) business, is finally going live. Users will be able to use the service to apply for Pay Later loans of $50 to $1,000 and then repay those loans in four equal installments over the course of six weeks with no interest or fees, according to the company’s announcement.
Apple Pay Later is a feature of the Apple Wallet that is intended to enable you to avoid immediately paying the full price for a product. The service, which Apple first announced at the 2014 WWDC, has been in development for some time. It was planned to be released with iOS 16; notwithstanding, developers were fighting with “technical and engineering issues,” deferring its rollout.
The Pay Later loan and payment history “may be reported to credit bureaus and impact their credit,” despite Apple’s claim that users can apply for a loan within the Apple Wallet “with no impact to their credit.” Users will begin to see the Pay Later option at checkout in apps and online on the iPhone and iPad once they have been approved for a loan. Apple claims that the Wallet app will allow users to view and manage their loans, as well as notify them when payments are due.
However, the service is currently unavailable to everyone. Apple claims that invites for early access to Apple Pay Later will be sent to “randomly selected” users. The assistance is just accessible in the US and for on the web and in-app purchases on iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4.
Apple launched a credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs in 2019, however this BNPL offering marks whenever that Apple first is dealing with the financial side of things without help from anyone else. Apple noted that a new subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC, is in charge of the Pay Later program and is “responsible for credit assessment and lending.” The organization did, be that as it may, cooperate with the BNPL program Mastercard Installments to enable Apple Pay Later, while “Goldman Sachs is the issuer of the Mastercard payment credentials.” According to the company, Apple Financing LLC will begin reporting Pay Later loans to US credit bureaus in the fall.
BNPL systems like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm have been criticized in the past for having the potential to harm customers, despite Apple’s emphasis on “financial health.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) stated last year that BNPL is “engineered to encourage consumers to purchase more and borrow more.” Among the “identified several areas of risk of consumer harm” were inconsistent consumer protections, the prevalence of data harvesting, and the risk of debut accumulation. In 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) initiated an investigation into a number of BNPL businesses and is still evaluating their impact on customers.