InstallmentPlan
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Square adds payment installment plans to its merchant tools
It its latest move into the banking industry's turf, Square is now letting its sellers offer payment installment plans. The company says it's easy for a seller to sign up for the feature and customers will be given the option of paying their total over the course of three, six or 12 months. While customers will have to apply for a payment plan, Square will assess and decide on those applications in real time.
AT&T streamlines its smartphone installment plans
AT&T's current Next installment plans are a little bewildering, to put it mildly. Do you want to trade in at 12, 18 or 24 months? How about a downpayment and installments for 28 months? Mercifully, the carrier knows what a mess it made. As of June 9th, it's streamlining its installment plans to give you just two choices. The first, Next Every Year, is for habitual upgraders: you can get a new phone every 12 months if you agree to a 2-year payment plan. The regular option, just called Next, lets you upgrade every 2 years if you're willing to make payments over 30 months.
US Cellular's new plans let you avoid contracts and big phone payments
If you'd rather not go to a very big US carrier like T-Mobile to avoid both contracts and up-front phone costs, don't worry -- US Cellular now lets you drop those obligations, too. Its newly launched Simple Connect plans provide unlimited data, messaging and voice without a contract, starting at $40 per month for basic phones. Smartphone plans start at $50 per month with 500MB of full-speed data, and $60 per month for 2GB. Going contract-free opens the door to an equally new (though far from original) installment plan that lets you pay for a device over the course of two years, rather than shelling out a lot of money up front. US Cellular's fresh rates won't tempt anyone away from the bigger data caps on regular plans (or competing networks), but they could give those with modest demands more control over when they upgrade phones or jump to other providers.
Apple online store lets Chinese buy on a two-year plan, puts iPads within reach
Apple has repeatedly stressed that China is important to its bottom line, but it faces a dilemma given the premium associated with its name: when it can take weeks' worth of typical pay to buy an iOS device, let alone a Mac, many locals either have to save up or else turn to alternatives. The company may not have truly low-cost devices -- at least, not yet -- but it is offering an olive branch in the form of installment plans. Chinese who order from the online Apple Store with a China Merchants Bank credit card can now buy virtually anything priced between ¥300 and ¥30,000 ($48 to $4,821) using up to 24 payments spread over two years. Much like in other countries, there's higher additional fees the longer the installments carry on. The strategy only helps a certain segment of the population for whom the up-front cost is the lone obstacle; that may be enough in the near future, though, given that there's still significant demand. [Image credit: Sina Tech]
