Apple buys UK financial firm as part of move into payments business
Payments Has Years Recent In Push Escalating Its Been Apple In
Technology giant Apple is understood to have bought London-based credit-scoring start-up company Credit Kudos, continuing its push into payments technology.
Credit Kudos lets businesses assess loan applicants by analysing banking data, such as user transactions, and offers a service for potential borrowers to assess their creditworthiness.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time,” said an Apple spokesperson.
Apple has been escalating its push in payments in recent years, launching the Apple Card in the US in 2019 and rolling out Apple device instalment plans on the credit card later that year. This is not available internationally yet.
It also offers the Apple Cash card for digital peer-to-peer payments and is working on a service for Apple Pay that would let people buy goods and services and then pay them off later in instalments.
In February, Apple confirmed plans to release its much-anticipated Tap to Pay feature on the iPhone later this year, giving merchants an alternative to Block’s Square technology. Apple has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100m for Canadian start-up Mobeewave.
According to UK business register Companies House, Credit Kudos was incorporated in 2015. The startup last announced funding in April 2020 in a blog post that is no longer accessible — but according to an archived version, raised £5m.