The world’s largest company continues to explore new business possibilities. Apple announced on Tuesday the creation in the United States of its first “buy now, pay later” program, a service that it will offer itself after a long delay in its plans to enter the financing business.
Under the name of Apple Pay Later, the firm will divide the cost of purchases into four payments that must be paid over six weeks. According to Bloomberg, customers who request the deferral of payment of their purchases will not have to pay interest or extra fees. The loan will be accessible through the iPhone Wallet and consumers will have the possibility of requesting financing from the company for a value of between 50 and 1,000 dollars.
This business line of the Cupertino firm was revealed for the first time in June of last year as part of its plan to venture into the world of financial services. Apple Pay Later was expected to arrive in September, but it has taken them quite a few more months than expected to launch their offer.
Even once put on the table, this new service is in an experimental phase that the company has described as “pre-launch.” Thus, it will only be available to a series of randomly selected consumers in the United States. The plan is to introduce it to other customers “in the coming months.”
Apple will offer the financing through a new subsidiary called Apple Financing. The company will carry out its own credit evaluations and will itself manage the technology necessary to run the service, a point that contributed to the delays in its deployment, according to Bloomberg. Apple has partnered with MasterCard to support its service, while Goldman Sachs will issue payment credentials.
Deferred payments in Spain
Throughout this month of March, specifically from the 1st to the 29th, both inclusive, Apple has been offering financing to its customers at 0% APR if an order of at least 299 euros was placed.
The big difference with the new service that has been designed in the US, in addition to the fact that the payment term in the Spanish case reaches a maximum of 24 months compared to six weeks for the US version, is that this possibility came from Cetelem.
Thus, both the documentation associated with the loan and its approval ultimately depended on the financial company that has collaborated with Apple. In the United States, now, Apple will act as financier.
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