(Pocket-lint) – Apple Pay Later might not arrive until next year. According to a new report, the upcoming “buy now, pay later” feature, which will allow eligible US customers to split their purchases into four equal payments over six weeks, is being delayed until 2023 due to technical engineering issues.
Apple announced Apple Pay Later at WWDC last summer. It was supposed to be a new feature in iOS 16 – or an update to it. However, Apple Pay Live is still not live. Journalist Mark Gurman has now claimed that Apple Pay Later could launch in spring 2023 as part of an iOS 16.4 update. “This leads me to believe that the company is not completely certain when Apple Pay Later will be ready for launch,” Gurman wrote in his Power-Up Bulletin. “The feature may not arrive until iOS 16.4 in the spring. I hear there were some pretty significant technical and engineering challenges in rolling out the service, which caused some delays.”
Apple Pay Later will be a feature of the Apple Wallet app. It will be available to Apple Pay users who shop online and in apps on iPhone and iPad. Apple basically offers zero-cost installment loans to users. That said, people are “subject to eligibility checks and approvals,” and Apple hasn’t specified what its eligibility checks include. But there are no interest charges when you use Apple Pay Later, and there are no fees.
For more on how Apple Pay Later will work when it arrives, check out Pocket-lint’s guide: What is Apple Pay Later and how does it allow you to “buy now, pay for the diaper”?
Written by Maggie Tillman.
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