If you happen to live in the United Kingdom and shop with Amazon, then you may not need to pay your banker a visit for big ticket items.
According to a Business Insider feature piece, Amazon UK is offering shoppers monthly installment payments for items that costs more than £400, which translates to US$ 590.
Amazon is calling the financing program “Pay Monthly,” and it would be provided by Hitachi Personal Finance UK.
Under the Amazon Pay Monthly program, consumers making any large purchases such as computers, televisions, and even smartphones will be able to defer paying the full amount and opt for paying it in equal installments over two to four years.
However, the cost of financing or the interest rate would not be cheap. In fact, the 16.9% interest rate is close to some of the credit card companies operating in the United Kingdom.
Although retailer department stores like John Lewis and Tesco introduced the financing options in the UK, this would be the first time Amazon has tried something like this.
Commenting on the new Pay Monthly plan, Amazon said that if consumers are already approved for installment loans from Hitachi Personal Finance and they place an order on Amazon.co.uk for any item that costs over £400, then they will “dispatch” items.
The payment terms say that if the order included multiple deliveries, then the monthly payment due will start exactly “30 days after the last package is dispatched.”
The best aspect of Amazon’s Pay Monthly program compared to some of the other consumer installment payment plans in the UK is that customers will not require to pay any “down payment” on the order. The first payment due in 30 days would be the only payment required to start the installment plan.
Industry analysts are convinced that Amazon’s partnership with Hitachi Personal Finance to offer the “Pay Monthly” option would give the US retail giant an upper hand as they offer a larger inventory compared to the competition in the United Kingdom.