Adding yet another payment method to its platform, Amazon is now set to introduce buy-now-pay-later as the online retail giant has announced a partnership with Affirm, a major player in the BNPL space.
With this new option available, customers at checkout will be able to choose an option to pay the due amount in a series of monthly installments on purchases over $50.
While this is a welcome move for Amazon, it’s happening a bit later. Walmart, the biggest competitor of Amazon in the US, already offers BNPL options to its customers, and Affirm is already serving more than 12,000 retailers.
Both the companies have confirmed in a statement that they have already started testing the feature with “select customers,” but right now, it has not revealed details about how many people are getting this new option or in what markets. However, the experiment is likely to be limited to the customers in the United States only.
As of now, there’s information available from the company about the timeline for releasing this new buy-now-pay-later feature to a wider range of customers.
In a statement, the companies have confirmed that customers will not be charged any late or hidden fees. It seems that customers will have to agree to a soft credit check during the checkout process, and the terms of the finance will be dependent on the credit history and purchase price. Depending on the customer and order, they might be offered a payment plan from three- to 48-month, with interest ranging from 0% to 30% APR.
In related news, Square, a payment processing company led by Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, recently announced the acquisition of a major BNPL player Afterpay for a whopping price of $29 billion.
