Confirm that buy now, pay later loans will be built into Apple Pay later this year

Apple device users will soon be able to operate the buy now and pay off loans later option Confirm for purchases, the companies announced on Tuesday.

Affirm will come as an option for Apple Pay users in the U.S. on iPhones and iPads later this year, the San Francisco-based fintech company said in a report. sawing. Apple itself confirmed this news update.

“This provides users with additional payment options and brings the ease, convenience and security of Apple Pay along with the features users love about Affirm – flexibility, transparency and no delays or hidden fees,” Affirm said in an email statement.

This move provides an incentive to the Affirm sector and the buy now, pay later sector in general. When Apple introduced its own BNPL product last year, investors feared the tech giant would displace independent vendors like Affirm. But the fact that Apple has decided to also allow Affirm products into its ecosystem shows that the fintech company has something unique to offer.

For example, while Apple’s BNPL loan allows users to repay purchases in four installments over six weeks, Affirm offers a range of longer-term offers that can be repaid in a year or more. The companies did not provide details of the terms of the recent loans.

“The bottom line – in our view – is that Affirm’s forceful brand and sophisticated underwriting technology has a disadvantage that Apple probably couldn’t replicate on its own,” Dan Dolev, an analyst at Mizuho Securities, said in a research note.

Apple also said that installment loans via credit and debit cards will be available on Apple Pay in the US Citigroup, Synchronization AND Fiserv-related issuers. Time-honored credit card games have begun offering BNPL-style installment loans after a surge in popularity during the Covid pandemic

Synchrony said in an email that it plans personalized installment loans with promotions based on the size of the transaction and the merchant involved, with the option to take advantage of promotional interest rates and loan duration.

“This announcement from Apple represents an opportunity for Synchrony to scale our elastic payment options and offer our merchants the opportunity to expand their presence in the growing mobile payments ecosystem,” Mike Bopp, Synchrony’s chief development officer, said in an email.

Thanks to the ubiquity of the iPhone, Apple Pay has more than 500 million users worldwide and leading market share in the US for mobile payments and digital wallet platform.

Affirm shares rose 11% on Tuesday, while Apple shares rose 7.3%.

Affirm shares rose even though the company indicated it would take time to significantly raise its revenue.

“Afirm does not expect this partnership to have a material impact on revenue or gross merchandise volume in fiscal year 2025,” the company said in its filing.