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Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 08, 2021 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
Shares of Affirm, a company that offers lending services for retailers, dropped as much as 16% on Tuesday after Bloomberg reported Apple plans to offer a competing “buy now pay later” product in partnership with Goldman Sachs.
Afterpay, an Australian company that also offers installment payments for products, fell over 5% on the report. It trades over-the-counter in the U.S.
The report is the latest sign that Apple wants to offer additional financial services through its Wallet app, Apple Pay payments service, and partnerships with financial services firms. Buy now pay later products allow consumers to buy a pricey product and pay for it over a number of months.
Apple’s most notable financial product so far is Apple Card, a credit card accessed through the iPhone’s Wallet app. Goldman Sachs handles the back-end and credit card parts of the product, which is enabling it to quickly break into consumer banking through Apple’s substantial user base. Apple and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Apple has previously offered monthly installment payments with no interest on some of its products bought through the Apple store with an Apple Card. For example, Apple Card holders can buy an iPhone in 24 monthly installments, with the payments being bundled into the minimum credit card payment inside the Wallet app.
“One of the things we are doing is trying to make it simpler and simpler for people to get on these sort of monthly financing kind of things,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in 2019 when introducing the program.
In May, Apple posted a job looking for a lead negotiator who would work with payment partners, which listed BNPL experience as a plus.
—CNBC’s Hugh Son contributed to this report.
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