Shares of Affirm Holdings Inc. extended their prior-session slide in premarket trade Tuesday, after Apple Inc. announced an installment-pay offering similar to one of Affirm’s buy-now pay-later options. The stock lost 5.5% of its value on Monday, after Apple announced its plan during the keynote speech of its WWDC developer event Monday and said that the installment option will be available where the Apple Pay service is accepted. The news also sent Australian buy-now-pay-later stocks lower; the Australian Securities Exchange is home to 15 such companies, the most of any exchange in the world. The global market for BNPL companies reached $120 billion in 2021, according to a report published Tuesday by GlobalData and has seen a compound annual growth rate of more than 85% from 2019 to 2021. “The sector has been able to grow so rapidly partly due to a lack of regulation,” said the report. “However, governing bodies are reviewing the sector and considering imposing rules to protect consumers from accumulating unmanageable debt.” Marqeta Inc. was flat, whioe Visa was down 0.5% and Mastercard was down 0.9%.
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