Affirm’s pay-over-time option comes to Canada through Amazon

You no longer need to live in the US to use Affirm's buy-now-pay-later services for much of your online shopping. Affirm is expanding to Canada through a partnership with Amazon. Spend $50 or more at Amazon.ca and you can choose Affirm's pay-over-time option at checkout to split the bill into monthly payments. As in the States, there aren't any late fees or surprise charges.

The payment option will be available within a month. The Canadian rollout comes roughly two years after Affirm bought local equivalent PayBright — this is effectively a rebranding. Affirm serves Australia as well, but only for people buying Peloton exercise equipment.

This won't help if you prefer to shop beyond Amazon, and might prove expensive if your purchase amount and pay schedule involve significant interest rates (they range from zero to 30 percent, Affirm says). As with a car or house, you're paying more overall to make the price easier to swallow. Still, this could be useful if you can't afford to buy a computer or TV outright and need to spread the costs.