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I was thinking exactly the same thing, clearly developed by US people, pretty much the only people who get paid fortnightly in the world!
We don't use the word fortnightly in the US.

You can already purchase Apple products on Apple.com and get that same deal through Paypal's "Pay in 4" Same thing. Just choose PayPal when you check out and set it up.
 
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Paying cash when you can get an interest-free loan is not smart, financially speaking.

I can afford to buy anything that Apple currently sells in online store, but given the choice between paying all upfront, or paying over time, I would choose paying over time, every time, and I do.

Now, if there was a discount for cash, that would be a totally different story.
FWIW, I wasn't referring to paying cash.

In fact I rarely pay cash. Why would I when I get interest-free multi-week loans and 2% (or more) effective discount on everything I buy via Apple Card, Citi DoubleCash Mastercard, or others where that have a higher cash back % (e.g. 5% on fuel purchases with Sam's Club credit card). Trick is to spend less than I can pay off every month.
 
Trying to figure out who/how anyone makes money here. At first I thought I would choose one of the credit cards in my wallet and then choose to do an ApplePay later transaction and then my selected credit card would be charged over time and I couldn't figure out how that would make Apple or anyone else money.

However it now appears the ApplePay Later card is a separate card in the wallet, so all transactions will go through it. So my guess now is that card is either a Visa or MC issued by some bank. When you make the charge, it goes through to the merchant you are purchasing from as a single payment in full and that party pays the Visa/MC merchant fee. Then the card issuer does an immediate debit from your bank account and 3 more at 2-week intervals. The card issuing bank and Apple probably then take some split of merchant fee for effectively providing a 6 week loan (even less since the loan is paid back in installments). So they make 3% of the transaction for providing 3 weeks average of float which seems to be a 52% return on their money. I'm using round numbers, but probably not far from the actual.

I get just as much or more float using my own credit cards for a transaction....I float the whole amount for between 4 and 8 weeks depending on where in my billing cycle I make a purchase. Plus my own credit card gives me some of that merchant fee back as cash back. This may appeal to those with no ability to get credit, but there would be absolutely no advantage to me to use it. It will also be interesting to see how many people default on these when the money isn't in their bank accounts for the subsequent debits.
I think you're right, except I think we all know the only reason this is offered is because a bank has sniffed out yet another way to catch people not paying their full balance on-time. Right? I don't see enough details from Apple yet to know exactly how it works, but banks aren't happy with JUST transaction/merchant fees. They want the late fees and the compounding interest at 18% at higher from the consumer. How that implemented will be very interesting, and it's not surprising that info wasn't included in the happy happy joy joy announcement at WWDC. Also, with a 2-week turnover for each payment, that's basically an unheard-of duration right now in the US. CC are more like a month to almost 2 depending on timing. ApplePay Later has way more opportunity to forget you owe money, and that bank just needs you to slip up one time and then they've got you.
 
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I don't see the great advantage of this when it is only 6 weeks. You can sometimes exceed that time if you were to make a purchase at the start of your billing period and then wait to pay off the bill right up until the due date. You'd incur no fees or interest doing that and it could be 7 weeks or so. Even if you're not at the start of the billing period, it is still easy to get 6 weeks this way or close to it.

If this was 3 months or more, I'd see more of an appeal.
 
Buy now, pay later is becoming popular again as our age's version of rent to own sort of. Apple would rather people stick with Apple's solution rather than deciding against it in order to do installment payments. It's very enticing for those that want to use this option, since it's no interest or fees. Obviously you can't skip payments, but at least there is a more trustworthy alternative solution to what other people are using anyway. Honestly, I would probably choose this solution too simply because it's a short-term 0% interest loan allowing someone else to hold my debt while my money earns a little more interest (at a crappy rate), but I won't be buying anything I can't afford to pay off 100% but choose not to.

Article: As buy now, pay later services have grown more popular, there remains virtually no oversight
 
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Free interest for now, later stage Apple will start generate commission as profitable business model.
 
What’s the catch? Financial institutions NEVER do anything out of the goodness in their hearts. If it works across all cards in your Apple Pay wallet does that mean Apple is assuming the debt until it’s paid off? And if so, what’s in it for them?
I think a part is increasing options to attract more user adoption. If the buyer makes payments on-time, and doesn't default, Apple has another user who is likely satisfied and will reuse the system. Whether the buyer pays for their purchase in full or not, Apple still gets some cut by virtue of the vendor using Apple Pay regardless.
 
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People in the US can be paid at a lot of different frequencies. I’ve had jobs that pay weekly, every 2 weeks, twice a month, and once a month.

I think most of the people that would use this are paid every week or every 2 weeks.

I think it would be ok if they would only allow one “pay later” purchase at a time, such that you could not make a new pay later purchase until your existing one is paid off. I think some people could quickly get overwhelmed by stacking up a lot of small payments until they are too much to cover.
 
Pushing more and more people to buy stuff they can’t afford.
What are the fees for who ends up delaying the repayments?

Just another way to increase the revenue, which would be ok, if the line between business growth and ethic wasn’t getting more and more blurred.

I doubt that Apple will do it that way. With current Apple Card installment payments for their own products, they divide the purchase by 12 and then charge you that amount each month...but they decrease your available credit by the total purchase price at the beginning. Each month, they increase your available credit by the 1/12th amount they charge your Apple Card.

I assume that they will do the same thing for Apple PayLater: you won't be able to finance over six weeks unless you have enough credit for the entire purchase...and then Apple will reserve that credit as if you'd paid for the entire purchase all at once.

I don't see the appeal of either one of these approaches.
 
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Have they published the terms of this anywhere? They said no interest or fees, but presumably that's only assuming you pay on time? If you miss an instalment there's going to be some kind of penalty?
If they want to be comparable to the other common pay later options here (paypal, klarna, afterpay. no experience w/ affirm & others) then the fees have to be pretty minimal from my knowledge. I've extended a payment on klarna for two weeks before and it still offers me the option to - there's also a ten day grace period to start. Site says they only charge a late fee of $7 and only one late fee per transaction. Afterpay is a bit harsher with $10 fee + $7 if you don't pay in ten days after that, with a 25% of purchase max. Of course I'm sure some people manage to do some damage anyway, but it's not like you're going deeply in debt if you for some reason can't pay for a few weeks.

Pay in 4 from Paypal, Klarna, & Afterpay are all 4 payments / every 2 weeks as well, so not a new concept.

I find it helpful... I guess some people on macrumors think I'm a fiscally unresponsible entitled American with Amazon Prime induced brain rot, but I'll have to live with that as sometimes I enjoy being able to get something before it sells out even if I get paid the next week ☺️
 
I can’t emphasize this enough: with the exception of big-ticket items like cars and houses, don’t buy stuff you can’t pay off immediately.
I mean, I generally agree, but I could see financing a phone this way. I could probably buy a new Apple Watch outright or put aside some money each paycheck to get a new iPhone, I make enough. But it would take up most of my discretionary spending to buy a new Apple Watch. With this, I could space it out across three paychecks and reduce the impact on any one pay check. Basically, since it’s a 0% interest loan, it’s essentially the same as saving the amount of the payment from each pay check, but you get the item at the beginning of the period instead of the end. That could be useful when buying something that may be supply constrained when you have the money saved up, like this year’s model of iPhone. (And once it’s reported to the credit reporting agencies in the future, that means it’ll build your credit score, making it easier to take out loans on cars and homes.)

Also, I want to clarify that the big ticket exception doesn’t mean you’re free to buy more car or more home than you need or can afford. That’s generally as much of a mistake as (if not more than) the over use of consumer credit.

Also, another caveat: if you have financial discipline enough to never outspend your earnings and to pay them off regularly, credit cards can be a great way to build credit worthiness (and take advantage of credit card companies’ incentives, like cash back and free extended warranties or free travel insurance).

If you’re lacking in financial discipline, though, you should really only borrow money to increase your earning potential. Student loans are a good example, but try to make sure you don’t buy more education than you need (ie a higher degree or more prestigious school than you need to get a job in your field) for the line of work you’re going into, and try to make sure you’re going into a field where it’s realistic to pay off those debts*. Borrowing money to start or expand a business is generally a good idea, assuming you can afford to pay the terms back using the money from the business.

* For instance, it’s probably not a great idea to go into over $100k of debt to get a bachelors degree and a Library Science master’s degree if, realistically, you’re going to end up earning $30k as a librarian in a small city’s library.
 
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BNPL is the Facebook of financial products.

It's not being done for you, it's being done for the good of the producer. Like social media. It doesn't exist for you, it exists to make you a product.

Just save your money to buy the stuff you "want".
 
I find the 3 x fortnightly payment thing a bit strange. The use case for this would normally be to spread the cost across salary payments which, in the UK, normally happen monthly. I appreciate this is US only, so perhaps the payment frequency is different in the US?
I'm not sure about the US, but in Canada it's pretty standard for people to be paid either every 2 weeks or twice a month.
 
BNPL is the Facebook of financial products.

It's not being done for you, it's being done for the good of the producer. Like social media. It doesn't exist for you, it exists to make you a product.

Just save your money to buy the stuff you "want".
I’d argue that, much like Facebook, it’s a useful tool in some contexts, it’s just that you have to have the discipline to control it instead of letting it control you. It’s easy to begin to abuse Facebook (FOMO, seeking social validation, getting envious of other people, abusing people on platform), but having the discipline to use it well also likely minimizes how much data Facebook can glean from you, while overusing it lets them have the keys to the house.
 
I'm not sure about the US, but in Canada it's pretty standard for people to be paid either every 2 weeks or twice a month.
Same in the US. In fact, it strikes me as weird that the UK is mostly every month. Sure, you get the same amount of money every month, and expenses like housing are typically monthly, but monthly pay is annoying for expenses like food (especially if you’re either not good with money or have low income), since you either have to buy your groceries all at once or struggle to extend your money through the whole month to buy groceries each week. I’m convinced that government benefits being monthly in the US is part of why there’s so much food stamp fraud and a contributing factor to why people on social assistance programs find it hard to get off of them.
 
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