Apple is reportedly testing out its Pay Later feature for Apple Wallet on its own staff.
The company announced Apple Pay Later at WWDC 2022 in June. It was to be an addition to the Apple Wallet app in iOS 16, but missed the rollout of Apple’s latest mobile OS several months later amidst reports of major technical issues.
Pay Later enables you to break purchase payments made through Apple Pay down into four interest-free instalments spread over six weeks. Essentially, this is Apple’s ‘buy now, pay later’ scheme.
We haven’t heard too much about this promising feature since then, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is now claiming that something is stirring. The company has already been testing Pay Later out internally, but has now expanded this testing phase to its 80,000 US retail employees.
Just last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook said of Apple Pay Later that “it will be launching soon”. Given that the feature is now partially out in the wild with Apple store staff, that would certainly seem to be the case. We could be talking a matter of weeks.
When it does arrive, we’re expecting Pay Later to be a US exclusive for a time. That’s generally how Apple tends to operate with its new services.
Apple Pay itself was announced way back in 2014 alongside the iPhone 6, but an international rollout didn’t commence until 2015. It has proved to be a primary instigator in making payments through your phone a thing, and Apple’s ambitions in the mobile payment space are clearly ongoing.
