Apple is extending internal trials of its Buy Now, Pay Later App Store service to its retail employees, bypassing the company’s corporate employees. While the full public launch is still pending, this latest move could be a sign that the feature will arrive relatively soon.
This information comes from A Bloomberg Report (opens in a new tab) by well-known Apple insider Mark Gurman, who spoke to some store employees. The current version of Pay Later is still a “trial version”, so it is not known exactly how close it is to the final product.
Little was revealed in the Guman report other than the suggestion that the service appears to be working as intended. Apple Pay Later, first revealed at the WWDC 2022 event, would allow customers to split the cost of a purchase made on an iOS device into “four equal payments over six weeks, with no interest or late fees.” Basically, this is the company’s take on Klarna. Upon release, Pay Later is set to make its way into Apple Wallet as an alternative payment option when checking out.
The service was originally supposed to launch alongside iOS 16 until Apple ran into some “technical challenges,” according to another the Guman report. It is not known what these development hiccups were, but they may be related to the “new financial platform” initiative.
As it turns out, these initiatives could take the form of another financial service from the tech giant called Apple Pay Monthly Ratments, which is being developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs. A Bloomberg report claims that users will be able to “spread the cost of large transactions over several months.” The catch, unfortunately, is that interest will be part of this new service. Other than that, not much is known about it as the service has yet to be officially announced.
A repeating story
Going back to the release date, the reason some, like Gurman, are expecting an imminent release is due to Pay Later’s development similarities with Apple Card. In 2019, the company also gave its retail employees early access to the Apple Card before it was released to the public a month later.
This does not mean that Pay Later will definitely appear in March, but it is worth paying attention to this company CEO Tim Cook recently said “coming soon” service in the United States. We asked Apple if it could give us any clues about the release date of Pay Later, but at the time of this writing, we have yet to receive any.
All we can do now is wait for the company to announce its next Keynote event, which is usually in the spring if the past few years indicate so. Now that we’ve got you covered, be sure to check out TechRadar’s recently updated list on the site best personal finance software for a year to help you manage your budgets.