Klarna CEO on Apple Pay Later: 'Plagiarism is the highest form of flattery'

What you need to know

• Klarna's co-founder and CEO says that Apple Pay Later is a "great win for consumers worldwide".
• The company this week announced plans to let users spread Apple Pay payments over six weeks and four payments with no interest or fees.
• Sebastian Siemiatkowski also quipped that plagiarism is "the highest form of flattery."

The co-founder and CEO of Klarna says that Apple's new Apple Pay Later feature is a great win for customers, quipping that plagiarism is "the highest form of flattery."

Sebastian Siemiatkowski took to Twitter this week in the wake of Apple's WWDC 22 conference, at which Apple unveiled its new versions of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and watchOS 9.

Speaking about Apple's new Apple Pay later features he said; "It is a great win for consumers worldwide that Apple is now embracing a better form of consumer credit."

While he joked that plagiarism "is also the highest form of flattery", he said there were "some more interesting dimensions" to the announcement.

Namely, Siemiatkowski believes the move will accelerate the rise of real interest-free BNPL (buy now pay later) services over traditional credit cards, which would be a big win for consumers. He also said Apple's foray into the field might help the media become more curious to understand BNPL and how it is "meaningfully better for consumers than traditional credit cards."

He likened the move to Apple joining Spotify in the music streaming industry, and suggested the move could see an end to more predatory services that charge high-interest rates, asking "who will pay APRs of 40%."

Apple's iOS 16 upgrade also includes a new order tracking feature built into Apple Pay, letting you see the progress of deliveries. The betas for this and all of Apple's other new software is available to developers right now!

Here's everything Apple announced at WWDC 2022