Apple to launch BNPL program in Canada via Affirm

Apple has been eyeing the BNPL space for some months now and as we had reported earlier, it is looking to launch a program on its store which will help the users to purchase the Apple products through three or four installments. But even before that, it looks as though the company would be launched BNPL for the online and offline purchase of its products in Canada so that the users would be able to pay back in one or two years.

It is also reported that this BNPL service would be provided free of charge initially. The BNPL industry has been growing in a very strong manner ever since the pandemic struck as people want to save money for situations like these and hence do not want to go all-in in trying to buy large products. The latest generation of users seem to prefer buying in installments and this has led to explosive growth in the BNPL space that has caught the eye of major companies like Paypal, Klarna, and Apple.

It is expected that Apple would be extending this service to merchants and products far beyond the Apple universe in due course of time and it is also likely to be tightly integrated with the Apply Pay service as a kind of perk for the users of Apple Pay. This is part of the expansion of Apple into the fast-growing fintech space which so far has been seeing innovations and growth from startups and now these small startups are going to face some serious challenges from major companies as well.

Recently, Square had acquired Afterpay in a major deal that saw the payment giant enter the BNPL space while there have also been companies like Klarna, Visa, and Paypal that have been launching their own versions of BNPL over the last few months as space heats up. With the kind of rush that we are seeing in this industry, it is an advantage to the user as they get to choose their BNPL product and increasing competition also ensures that the charges and the rates are kept under a tight cap, at least for now.