Apple will not utilize financial services companies to handle the lending for its new buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, but will rather handle the lending itself, according to Bloomberg and CNBC. It will use a subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC, which is licensed to supply lending services, and which will be kept separate from Apple’s main business.
The new service, which will be called Pay Later, was officially announced at its World Wide Developers Conference, Monday. Users will be able to make a purchase, through Apple Pay and then take six weeks to make four equal payments with no interest.
Apple currently partners with Goldman Sachs to perform credit checks and lending on its Apple credit card. The financial firm will play a smaller role in the new service, since users will have to use their Goldman-issued Apple credit card, in order to use Pay Later.
However according to CNBC, when a person applies for Pay Later, Apple will run soft credit checks on them itself, and Apple will not extend additional credit to users who miss payments. Apple also reportedly will not report missed payments to credit bureaus, so they will not affect a user’s credit. Although there is no official number, CNBC predicts users will be capped about about $1000 in credit. There is no information on whether late fees will be charged for missed payments.
In addition to facilitating purchases users might normally forgo, it is expected Pay Later is also designed to more thoroughly wed users to their iPhone, and their Apple credit card, both of which will be required to use the service.