Apple today announced a major update to Apple Pay called Apple Pay Later, which will allow users to split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments without interest or late fees. The new financial product — which was rumored ahead of its debut at Apple’s 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — marks Apple’s move into the enormous and growing buy now, pay later (BNPL) industry.
“Apple Pay Later lets you split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments spread over six weeks with zero interest and no fees of any kind,” Corey Fugman, senior director of Apple Wallet and Apple Pay, said at the conference. “Upcoming payments are managed through wallet, making it easy to keep track of what’s due when and to stay within a budget.”
Fugman said Apple Pay Later doesn’t require any integration and works with your standard Apple Pay. Apple Pay Later will be available everywhere that Apple Pay is accepted, including online and in apps.
Bloomberg last year reported that Apply Pay Later would use Goldman Sachs as the lender for the loans needed for the installment offerings, similar to Apple’s credit card offering, Apple Card. The report claimed customers making an Apply Pay Later purchase would have the option to make either four interest-free payments made every two weeks or across multiple months with interest.
BNPL remains incredibly popular among consumers. More than 51% of Americans said that they’d tried a BNPL service as of March 2021, according to one survey. And Accenture estimates that the number of BNPL users in the U.S. reached 45 million in 2021.
