Why Shares of Affirm Are Down Today

Shares of "buy now pay later" (BNPL) company Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) were trading down by almost 10% as of 2:56 p.m. ET Thursday as investors continued to digest the recent revelation from Apple that it is wading into the space.

At its annual developers conference this week, Apple disclosed that after it releases the next iteration of its iOS in September, consumers will be able to use its new BNPL service when making purchases with Apple Wallet. The service will allow them to buy items with no money down, and pay for those purchases in installments with no fees and zero interest. The company will integrate its BNPL offering directly into Apple Wallet, which comes installed on every iPhone. BNPL has soared in popularity recently, thanks in large part to Affirm.

Interestingly, Apple plans to fund loans through this program via its own balance sheet and also make credit decisions through its own subsidiary, which arguably pushes the tech giant further into the financial services space than ever before. Many investors have been wondering how deep some of these large technology companies might go into financial services, considering how effective they are at customer acquisition.

Source Fool.com