STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.
Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.
Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!
Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.
Does affirm charge lower rate than credit card
hmmm....is that statistic really true?
Most consumer research would lead you to the conclusion that young people are more skeptical of credit and banks, and that there is a sizable portion of them who prefer debit to credit. There's a pretty wide gap between the people who can't and the people who prefer not to get credit cards, and I think it stands to reason that one of those groups is more likely than the other to have, like, a LinkedIn page that Affirm can look at for underwriting. Affirm is probably targeting people who value transparency and simplicity, who are modestly skeptical of banks and credit in general, and while I doubt they'll be wildly successful and scale there is probably a decent market for that. I know a number of young people with reasonable jobs but various types of debt who just prefer using their debit card.
To put it in perspective, consider that the majority of Americans still haven't used a ride-sharing app.
Upstart financing firm Affirm Inc. is in talks to offer installment loans to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. customers, said people familiar with the matter.
The development is the latest sign of retailers' desire to reach new customers with limited credit histories and of the intensifying competition facing credit card providers such as Synchrony Financial, the exclusive issuer of US credit card for the world's largest retailer.
Relevant to discussion of affirm, which is perhaps doing better than we were previously giving it credit for:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-ma...est-threat-to-card-giant-synchrony-1503399683
I'm conflicted; this could be a good option for consumers with stable incomes but low savings to finance larger purchases, or it could be a way for retailers to try to bump sales by offering another avenue of financing. Maybe a bit of both.