Apple Pay Later, an interest-free buy now, pay later service announced at WWDC in June 2022, finally started rolling out today, but for now it will only be open to a lucky few. And we mean lucky in the literal sense, because Apple says the first people allowed to use the service were randomly selected.
In a press release, the company says that starting March 28, it will “begin inviting select users to access a preview version of Apple Pay Later, with the intent of offering it to all eligible users in the coming months”. Selecting can mean a lot of things (and involves some form of criteria) but in fine print it says invitations will be sent to “randomly selected users”. In fact, we suspect both are true to some extent. It would make sense for Apple to randomly select guests from a pool of those who pre-qualify based on a variety of criteria, potentially including past financial activities and/or credit rating.
One of the eligibility criteria, anyway, is that you must be 18 or older to use it (19 in Alabama). Another is that you must be a US citizen or resident as Apple is launching the service in its home territory only at first. (Although not in all 50 states: Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and US territories are all currently excluded.) We don’t know when the service will expand to the remaining states or to other countries, if not at all, or even when it goes from “pre-release” to full release. Apple only says it “plans to offer it to all eligible users in the coming months.”
Beyond those trivial details, however, there’s a lot about the service to intrigue. It is a simply structured loan service that divides the cost of purchases into four equal payments: the first must be paid immediately and the other three at two-week intervals. That’s the initial structure, anyway. Bloomberg reports that a longer-term monthly Apple Pay plan is also in the works.
The service isn’t limited to purchasing Apple products, but there is a long list of prohibited items, including gambling, cryptocurrency, pornography, tobacco, and gift cards. This includes a general prohibition of “Any good or service deemed unacceptable by us”.
As long as payments are made on time, there are no interest charges or fees for the consumer. If payments are missed, however, Apple will handle the financing itself under a new Apple Financing LLC rather than working with partners such as Goldman Sachs, which operates the Apple Card.
Apple has released a support document explaining how to request and use Apple Pay Later, but unless Tim Cook sends you a golden ticket, you won’t be able to try the service for yourself until later this year. Which, for reasons of financial prudence, may not be a bad thing.
