Apple intensifies testing of installment payments: will Apple Pay Later debut in a month?

For some time now, Apple has been working on the release of a new financial service. The ‘ Buy now, Pay later ‘ feature within Apple Pay will be introduced soon. It will work in a similar way to services that, even in Italy, have now taken hold, such as Klarna, or the possibility of dividing expenses into three zero-interest installments offered by PayPal and Amazon.

Apple is already testing the service internally, thanks to the participation of some employees in a beta program. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has extended the Buy Now, Pay Later feature to thousands of employees at its Apple Store network of retail stores. It is still a closed test, but the audience of testers in this case is much wider, which suggests that the debut of the service, at least in the USA, could be imminent.

The offer, called Apple Pay Later , allows customers to split payment for purchases into several interest-free installments. The company had already launched an internal test aimed exclusively at employees. The offer will propel Apple into a new, rapidly growing financial market. The project, however, has already suffered several setbacks.

The service was first announced last June and was due to release in September as part of iOS 16. Instead, it was delayed until 2023 due to some unspecified technical challenges.

The company has used a similar launch strategy with some previous financial products. In 2019, Apple had offered its Apple Card credit card to Apple Store employees, the official debut for the public came just a month later. Also for this reason, many suspect that the Apple Buy Now, Pay Later option could arrive between March and April. It would not surprise us if, at least initially, the service was offered exclusively in North America and a few other select markets.