By
Godfrey Benjamin
February 26th, 2024
Affirm plans to soon enter into crypto buying and selling services, however, it hasn’t defined the timeline when it will start the process.
Online lender Affirm who popularized the “buy now, pay later” model, becomes the latest FinTech firm to move into crypto. On Tuesday, September 28, Affirm confirmed its plans to introduce crypto investments.
Affirm CEO Max Levchin said his company will soon introduce a feature facilitating the buying and selling of crypto assets from the users’ saving accounts. during his two-hour presentation, Levchin said:
“It’s time for Affirm to support cryptocurrencies in a way that feels organic to us. We will soon leverage our savings accounts to seamlessly enable crypto ownership.”
Affirm hasn’t confirmed the timeframe for the release. In its presentation yesterday, the company showed a slide saying “New and coming soon” followed by “Crypto.” It also showed the Affirm mobile app with “bitcoin holdings” underneath the savings account.
Affirm to Compete with Existing Players in Crypto
A lot of FinTech players and tech firms have been working on offering crypto buying and selling services amid strong retail demand. As a result, the market has turned quite competitive with online lenders and mobile investing apps trying to lure younger customers.
Players like SoFi, Chime, PayPal, and Robinhood have started offering crypto-related services to customers along with their core offering. Furthermore, crypto exchange Coinbase also released a new function allowing users to get paid in Bitcoin. Coinbase said that it will enable it through direct deposit of paychecks into Coinbase accounts.
Also, most of the FinTech firms like Affirm started with niche offerings. But slowly they are expanding to include broader banking and financial services. Besides, they are also working on getting the entire banking experience online. This will help them to serve customers who are not willing to make visits to physical banks but instead prefer simple user interfaces.
However, Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) shares tanked 1.53% on Wednesday, September 29. AFRM shares closed at $112.77. After hitting a low under $50, AFRM stock price has more than doubled.
Last month of August, there was news that tech giant Amazon is planning to incorporate the “buy now, pay later” facility in its ecosystem. With the partnership, Amazon customers in certain parts of the United States will be able to split payment for purchases of $50 or more. Payments can be split into monthly installments as may be convenient for the user. Once approved, customers can expect that they won’t pay more they were shown at checkout.