The tech giants are determined to make their mark in financial services. Apple illustrates this ambition by launching fractional payments for the purchase of its products in Canada. The group is also preparing an option for payment in installments via its Apple Pay app.
Apple products payable in installments in Canada
An agreement between Apple and Affirm, a Californian payment company, will enable consumers of Apple products to pay for their iPhone, Mac or iPad in several monthly instalments.
Payments can be made in 12 to 24 months, free of charge, whether the purchase is made in-store or online. This fractional payment will be made via Canadian company PayBright, which specializes in payment solutions in installments, and was acquired for $260 million by Affirm in 2020.
But Apple sees further ahead, and is preparing with New York bank Goldman Sachs a fractional payment option that will be integrated into its Apple Pay application. Goldman Sachs, with whom Apple has developed its credit cards, will this time enable the securing of credits made via Apple Pay.
According to information revealed by Bloomberg, which has not yet been confirmed by Apple, this option for payment in instalments will be known internally as Apple Pay Later, and will offer two possibilities. The first, Apple Pay in 4, would enable payments to be made in 4 instalments, while the second, Apple Pay Monthly Installments, would enable payments to be spread out over a longer period.
GAFA's appetite for financial services
This project demonstrates the ambition of tech giants in the financial sector, who have so far been content to establish partnerships with traditional banks, offering payment services such as Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Uber Money.
The huge community of users that Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple possess represents a potential pool of financial data which, in the hands of the GAFAs, would enable these giants to gain even more precise knowledge of users' consumption habits and to better target the advertising on which their business model is based.
Supervisory authorities are keeping a very close eye on GAFA's advances in financial services, fearing that by upsetting the established order, these players could jeopardize the balance and stability of the financial system.