Consumers can now pay for everything from freshly-made lattes to dine-in meals in four installments using Apple Pay.
Buy now, pay later companies Affirm and Klarna announced on Sept. 15 that they will offer users the ability to access their financing when making in-store purchases through Apple Pay, the largest digital wallet brand.
The move is a bet by Affirm and Klarna that buy now, pay later payment plans will continue to expand their reach. The financing companies first became popular during the pandemic, with lockdown restrictions leading to a surge in e-commerce activity. But the payment plans have expanded into much more than just online shopping.
The new offerings build on the companies’ existing partnerships with Apple Pay. Users have been able to access Affirm and Klarna when checking out with Apple Pay online since 2024.
To access financing for in-store purchases, consumers need to manually add their preferred buy now, pay later option to their Apple Wallet. Once added, the ability to pay in installments is just a few clicks away.
Previously, in-store installment plans were available to customers who applied for Klarna and Affirm’s Visa cards, which are offered both virtually and physically.
But the Apple Pay play has the potential for far greater reach: Almost 20% of the U.S. population uses the digital wallet, according to a Capital One estimate.
The move helps solidify Affirm’s and Klarna’s dominance in the buy now, pay later space, said Dan Dolev, a senior analyst at Mizuho. In 2023, Apple introduced its own payment-plan program, but discontinued the service the following year.
“ It kind of shows you that doing buy now, pay later is really not as easy,” Dolev said. “If Apple can’t do it, then that’s gotta be pretty hard to do.”
The buy now, pay later sector grew approximately 6% between 2024 and 2025, per Capital One. This year, more than a quarter of the U.S. population reports using the service, and nearly three-quarters of those users earn less than $75,000 annually.
Consumers use it for discretionary goods like apparel and furniture, but also staples. Almost a quarter of those users receive buy now, pay later loans to finance their groceries, according to a recent LendingTree survey. That’s up from 14 percent a year ago.
Pay-in-installment services like Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay are controversial among finance experts. Some warn that the loans, which are primarily interest-free but can incur late fees, can be deceiving and enable “debt stacking,” or overextending debt through multiple lines of credit.
Approximately 41% of buy now, pay later users made late installment payments in the last year, up from 34% the year prior, per Lending Tree—but most were only late by less than a week.
For now, most buy now, pay later transactions have no effect on a consumer’s credit score, but that may change soon. In April, Affirm announced that it would share user transactions with credit companies Experian and TransUnion, which are figuring out how to incorporate them into credit score calculations.
Affirm announced two other commercial partnerships last week. Its payment plans will now be offered on ServiceTitan, a home contracting platform, and Vagaro, a platform for beauty and wellness booking.