Apple has announced that it will discontinue Apple Pay Later, its “buy now, pay later” financing service, after less than a year. The product will be launched for US users in October 2023Apple announced the move in a statement. 9to5Mac The company announced Monday that it will replace the service with eligible credit and debit card and loan offerings from Affirm.
Apple told 9to5Mac that users who take out loans through Apple Pay Later can manage and repay their loans using the Apple Wallet app. For the past eight months, Apple Pay Later has allowed users to pay for purchases between $75 and $1,000 in four installments over six weeks with no interest, fees, or impact to their credit score. However, Apple did not disclose why it suddenly backed away from its first in-house banking service. Here is Apple’s full statement to 9to5Mac:
Starting later this year, users around the world will be able to use credit and debit cards and installment loans offered through lenders when checking out with Apple Pay. With the launch of this new global installment loans offering, Apple Pay Later will be discontinued in the U.S. We remain committed to giving users easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution enables us to work with banks and lenders that support Apple Pay to offer flexible payments to more users in more places around the world.
While Apple has been branching out more into banking in recent years, Apple Pay Later was the only financial service the iPhone maker actually built itself. While Apple’s savings accounts and credit cards were offered through Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, Apple Pay Later issued loans through an in-house Apple subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC. This was essentially a bank set up within Apple and licensed to offer these “buy now, pay later” services, showing just how seriously Apple is taking its banking.
Apple did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Just eight months later, the service is mysteriously shutting down. Last week, Apple warned its US users that Apply for a loan directly through Affirm at checkout With Apple Pay. This was confusing at the time because it’s basically the same thing Apple Pay Later offers, but now it looks like Affirm and other services are replacing Pay Later.
Apple first announced Apple Pay Later at WWDC 2022 as part of what was then a promising foray into financial services. But Apple’s banking division suffered a painful defeat last year, with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon saying: faced huge internal backlash One of Apple’s new banking services appears to be in jeopardy after the company discontinued Apple Pay Later in its partnership with Apple.
