Chamath @ 01:14:07Right
marketstech
Goldman Sachs and Apple will launch their own buy-now-pay-later offering integrated into Apple’s financial products in the near future (within a few years of August 2021).
Goldman Sachs and Apple are about to do something there with buy now, pay later as well for themselves.View on YouTube
Explanation
- The prediction (Aug 2021) was that Goldman Sachs and Apple would launch their own buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) product integrated into Apple’s financial ecosystem within a few years.
- Apple announced Apple Pay Later—a BNPL service—at WWDC in June 2022 and began rolling it out in the U.S. in March 2023, with broader availability by October 2023. The service lets users split purchases into four payments over six weeks, directly from the Wallet app and at checkout with Apple Pay, i.e., fully integrated into Apple’s financial products. (techcrunch.com)
- In Apple’s own materials and consistent press coverage, Apple Pay Later is described as being enabled via the Mastercard Installments program, with Goldman Sachs acting as the issuer of the Mastercard payment credential used to complete Apple Pay Later purchases—i.e., Apple and Goldman jointly underpin the BNPL function, even though the actual lending/credit risk sits with Apple Financing LLC. (techcrunch.com)
- This clearly matches the substance of Chamath’s claim that Goldman Sachs and Apple were about to do something in BNPL for themselves, and it happened well within “a few years” of August 2021 (roughly 1.5–2 years later).
- Although Apple announced in June 2024 that it would discontinue Apple Pay Later in favor of new global installment options, that is a later strategic change and does not alter the fact that the predicted product was indeed launched as described. (9to5mac.com)