Interesting article discussing the company "Affirm".
Founded by the former CTO of PayPal, this company has raised half a billion dollars from investors and offers a new way to pay for your shopping.
I think it is worth discussing the dangers of using this kind of financing. Feels to me that this type of service will incent people to buy material goods beyond their means, and fall into a vicious cycle of high-interest loans.
The installment loans, made at 10–30 percent annual percentage rates, or APR, and averaging $750 according to the company, are offered for everything from mattresses and plane tickets to motorized skateboards and coding classes to $500 boots and $200 limited-edition denim.
For merchants, Affirm provides exceptional benefits, increasing average order values across the board; perhaps not surprisingly, people will shop more, and more often, when they don’t immediately feel the costs. And for many customers, including Jocelyn, the predictable, convenient payments are worth the higher interest rates.
Affirm customers have an average of 2.2 loans with the company, while some shoppers have upward of 50 at a time.
Submitted November 30, 2017 at 10:29AM by getToTheChopin http://ift.tt/2jz7rhk
