You know the saying “Cash is king” just means money right? Not paper money. But money.
Apple Pay counts.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Discontinuing Apple Pay Later
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Apple Pay counts.
Me too. I didn't even know Apply Pay Later was a thing.
Good riddance to one of the worst financial products to ever drain consumer's wallets. If you can't afford to pay for it, don't buy it on consumer credit. Save up your money until you have enough, and buy it outright. You might have to wait a bit, but if you can't save enough, how were you going to make the payments on time?
I love comments without any sense of history.
Apple has been in the financial services sector for decades. Pre-Apple Card, they were in business with BarClay under Jobs to lease and provide credit lines to purchase their products. They even released an iTunes branded credit card with BarClay with 1% back in iTunes credit.
Pre-Jobs, Apple in partnership with Citibank, offered its own branded credit card. Before that, they worked with Bank of America to provide financing for their customers.
That's how so many college students afforded $5,000+ Macs in the 90s.
Apple Pay Later and Apple Card were long-term ideas.
Here's some of the back story:
"When Apple held discussions with Capital One about creating a joint card in the late 1990s, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs “had an aversion” to rejecting any of his customers for the card, according to a former executive of the bank. They tested a card, but didn’t roll it out broadly, this person said."
Apple Card approvals level high; Steve wanted them to be 100%- 9to5Mac
Apple Card approvals levels are unusually high, according to a new report today, with some sub-prime borrowers having their applications accepted ...
9to5mac.com
Contactless has made great strides in the U.S since 2015. I'd say 90% of the terminals take contactless now.
The problem is, we still have a group of people that prefer using cash, yet alone, want to use contactless. Heck, we have people that still ask to pay with checks and then get all huffy and puffy when we don't accept them.
Whereas the Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs and other transactions in Apple Pay are done through various issuing banks/credit card companies, Apple Pay Later was handled by Apple themselves, meaning they were literally playing the role of lender. Given that they weren't charging fees or interest I can't imagine how this was possibly a profitable venture for them, especially when you consider that Apple themselves would take a loss in the event of payment delinquency.
Partnering with Affirm or a similar company that can handle the financial, regulatory, and other risk burdens that come with consumer lending is a smart choice.
Partnering with Affirm or a similar company that can handle the financial, regulatory, and other risk burdens that come with consumer lending is a smart choice.
Every country has its own banking regulations and oversight requirements. Apple offers these new features in the US because it's their largest market (that's not China with all of its quirks) which is under a fairly consistent regulatory environment.
Restaurants in the US are an odd outlier with EMV card (AKA chip card) or NFC tap to pay acceptance. 90-95% of US retailers and counter-service dining establishments accept either. Sit down restaurants are the biggest major sectors in the US who haven't accepted this payment tech yet, mostly because they don't want to have to buy a fleet of expensive handheld card/tap readers.
The big holdout in the US is Walmart. When/if they finally get on board then that would take care of the majority of places that people shop.
In terms of the UK I wonder how many partners Apple may “allow” for BNPL given a lot of it is unregulated at present.
True.
Contactless has been pervasive here for years though because all the major banks issue contactless cards as standard and all the major retailers adopted terminals that will support it.
I don't carry a card with me most days I just use my iPhone to pay for everything.
I pretty much stopped using Apple Pay after all my cards got contactless. Less chance of losing my phone if it stays in my pocket most of the time.
my take is that BNPL is not a profitable industry. At apple's scale, no bank would want to be backing that up especially with no requirement of signing up for a credit card. It's an indictment on the industry that the product has no chance of good financial outcomes. Apple traditionally has put the burden on banks but with GS/applecard, i think banks are catching on.
Goldman Sachs wanted to break into the consumer banking business through leveraging Apple’s customer base but had little experience making loans to less affluent Apple customers. The deal left Sachs with sole burden of setting aside the credit loss provisions something other potential partners turned down. Ultimately the partnership hurt them both.
Never mind the fact that there were very Un-Apple like bumps in the road using the Card itself. Ramdom declines that shouldn’t have happened, a terrible chargeback experience when it is warranted, and more. The Apple Pay experience is the only thing nice about the card, because you can do it all in the Wallet app, but it seems with the discover partnership they seem to be adding this to other cards anyway.
Whose problem is it when a customer pays cash? Not the merchant, who doesn't have to pay bank transaction fees. Not the bank, who never gets stuck with non-performing loans. Not the customer, who faces no possibility of interest charges if their financial condition prevents them from making their payments on schedule.
Is it your problem? Maybe, if you can't wait in line for 30 seconds while someone fishes in a wallet or purse, or writes a check. But how were you going to change the world in 30 seconds, anyway? You wasted more than that writing your screed!
Seeing Affirm showing up everywhere is pretty cringe, but at least it isn't Apple branded I guess. Hopefully it isn't spammy in the Apple Card app.