With Apple in the game, Southeast Asia’s BNPL players must up their game and consolidate

Radek Jezbera

APPLE has just announced its intentions to enter the ‘buy now pay later’ (BNPL) space in a more aggressive fashion than expected – the iPhone maker’s BNPL will be available anywhere where Apple Pay is accepted (only the United States for now).

With this move, Apple is moving deeper into financial services by opting to manage their own credit decisions, leveraging their vast cash balance sheet, instead of partnering with an institution like Goldman Sachs as they did on the Apple Card. Apple’s BNPL feature works on the Mastercard Installments technology platform, helping mostly banks to offer easy instalment products to their customers.