Apple says it’s shutting down Apple Pay Later, the tech giant’s “buy now, pay later” loan service, less than a year after launching the product to United States users in October 2023. Apple announced the move in a statement to 9to5Mac on Monday, saying it would replace the service with loan offerings from eligible credit and debit cards, as well as Affirm.
Apple told 9to5Mac that users with an active loan through Apple Pay Later would still be able to manage and pay their loans using the Apple Wallet app. For the last eight months, Apple Pay Later enabled users to pay for purchases between $US75 and $US1,000 in four payments over six weeks with no interest, fees, or impact on credit score. However, Apple did not provide a reason for its sudden retreat from the company’s first in-house banking service. Here’s Apple’s full statement to 9to5Mac:
Starting later this year, users across the globe will be able to access installment loans offered through credit and debit cards, as well as lenders, when checking out with Apple Pay. With the introduction of this new global installment loan offering, we will no longer offer Apple Pay Later in the U.S. Our focus continues to be on providing our users with access to easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution will enable us to bring flexible payments to more users, in more places across the globe, in collaboration with Apple Pay enabled banks and lenders.
Apple has ventured further into banking in recent years, but Apple Pay Later was the only financial service the iPhone maker truly handled itself. Apple’s savings accounts and credit cards were offered through Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, but Apple Pay Later issued loans through an in-house subsidiary of Apple, Apple Financing LLC. It was essentially a bank created within Apple licensed to offer these “buy now, pay later” services, and signaled how serious Apple was about its banking push.
Apple did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Now, just eight months later, the service is inexplicably shutting down. Last week, Apple announced that U.S. users will be able to apply directly for loans through Affirm when they check out with Apple Pay. It was confusing at the time since that’s essentially the same thing Apple Pay Later offers, but now it seems that Affirm and other services will replace Pay Later.
Apple first announced Apple Pay Later at WWDC 2022 and was part of Apple’s then-promising push into financial services. However, Apple’s banking unit has been a sore spot in the last year. Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon reportedly faced major internal backlash for the partnership with Apple. Now, with the shuttering of Apple Pay Later, it seems another one of Apple’s new banking services is on the rocks.