Apple is now offering the upcoming and much-awaited feature ‘buy now, pay later’ service for testing to the company’s thousands of retail employees. The service is called Apple Pay Later, according to Bloomberg news.
As per reports, the company has contacted retail staffers and offered them a test version of the service this week. With the Apple Pay later service, users can split the payment for purchases into installments, said sources. This service was previously released for testing to corporate employees.
Apple first announced the Pay Later services in last June. Though, it was planned to be released last September as part of iOS 16, it got delayed until 2023 after technical challenges. Apple has The service will run on a new financial platform that Apple designed for in-house initiatives.
Apple has applied this strategy with other financial products in the past. For example- it reportedly introduced the Apple Card credit card to retail staff about a month before a public debut in 2019.
The first version of the ‘Google Pay Later’ service will allow consumers to split a purchase made through Apple Pay into four installments paid over six weeks, without interest or fees.
The tech giant is said to be reporting another Apple Pay Monthly Installments version in partnership with Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which will able shoppers to split up the cost of large transactions over several months with interest. However, this service is yet to be announced officially.
The company has set up a new subsidiary Apple Financing LLC to launch Apple Pay Later. The subsidiary will allow the Cupertino, California-based company to handle lending itself, sidestepping partners. Apple has about 270 stores in the US and more than 80,000 employees across the country, letting the company quickly test the feature with a large population.
(Source: Bloomberg )
Ms Kalinga