How can the Samsung Upgrade Programme offer 0% APR?
This is more a question about economics than about personal finance. The answer, though, is straight-forward. Samsung makes enough profit on the phones that they are willing to eat the costs of a 0% loan, with the attendant risk of non-payment and the loss due to inflation. By offering financing, they expect to sell more phones. So, it's a slight cost to Samsung, but one they can easily afford due to the markups and increased volume of sales. "The financing is built into the price.  I do not have hard facts, but I strongly suspect that very few people buy brand-new smartphones at full price upfront.  Most pay a monthly installment to the carrier or retailer equal to 1/24 of the full price, which in effect is ""0% financing for 2 years"".  Samsung might be able to advertise a lower retail price and then offer financing at some rate of interest, but from a marketing standpoint, offering ""0%"" financing makes it feel like you're getting ""free money"", when in fact it's built into the overall price. Which sounds better, buying an $840 phone with 0% financing for two years or buying an $800 phone at 4.85% APR for two years (both have a $35 monthly payment)?" Having just purchased an upcoming Samsung phone using their 0% interest I can tell you that the justification is to give you credit. I have the same with Best Buy which is 0% for a specific initial purchase. The bank (in the Samsung case is TD Bank) establishes a rotating credit line for you. The APR after is well established at the very high side of 29.99%. Nobody in their right mind should want to pay that much interest on any purchase. My last car purchase was below 3% APR. Additionally the introductory rate will still calculate their 29.99% interest as if it existed since the first day of credit and will be applied to your balance should you ever be late on any single payment. At that time the interest is factored in as if it were always there and payments are adjusted accordingly. You see, the bank wants you to pay their high interest rate. So they entice you with the 0% and hope you either finance more on that credit line (exempt from the promotional rate) or miss a payment and they can hit you with a whammy. Specifically the question asks how this offer benefits Samsung. To answer that portion; it ensures a sale at full retail price of the phone. Samsung is just an agent between you and the bank. The bank takes on the risk for a potential high reward.
I would take a closer look at each provider. I have one credit-card provider who when there is a large portion of credit available, they frequently offer promotions on balance transfers so you fill that credit, sometimes it can be 0% for xx months, or a very low % until paid off in full. If this is the case clear that card fully and balance transfer the remainder to get an even lower interest to make the repayments eaier to clear. Nope. Or at least, if it were possible the company offering such a credit card would quickly go out of business. Credit card companies make money off of fees from the merchants the user is buying from and from the users themselves. If they charged no fees to the user on cash advances and, in fact, gave a 3% back on cash advances, then it would be possible for a user to: The company would lose money until they stopped the loophole or went out of business. I think your understanding is correct as far as you describe, but you don't mention a critical detail to me.  You also imply some penalty details for early withdrawal / cancellation but you don't state those terms in detail. Where and when is the interest paid?  Does it go into the same CD for compounding?  Does it get paid to another account?  The description does say that it is priced at par, so we at least know that the interest doesn't have to be stuck unpaid within the CD until maturity, but it also means you don't necessarily get compounding at the CD rate. Without knowing where the interest goes, and if it's available for compounding, be careful in how you compare it to other CDs / savings accounts.  A compoundable structure might be a better option, even at a lower APY. Because your friend isn't going to like the ~2% charge they have to pay to the credit card company on the $10,000 purchase. Credit card companies make money off of transactions. The cardholder normally doesn't pay any transaction fees (and in fact can make a profit via rewards), but the merchant has to pay a certain amount of money to the credit card company for the transaction. In this case, the apartment owners ate the charge, likely because it was easier for them to send a check than to refund the cost of the fee through the credit card company. If you started doing this a lot to take advantage of this, I would imagine they would get smart and refuse your business (it'll be pretty obvious what you're doing if you're not signing any leases). "Your use of the term ""loan"" is confusing, what you're proposing is to open a new card and take advantage of the 0% APR by carrying a balance.  The effects to your credit history / score will be the following:" "When you refinance, there is cost (guess: around $2000-$3000) to cover lawyers, paperwork, surveys, deed insurance, etc. etc. etc. Someone has to pay that cost, and in the end it will be you. Even if you get a ""no points no cost"" loan, the cost is going to be hidden in the interest rate. That's the way transactions with knowledgeable companies works: they do business because they benefit (profit) from it. The expectation is that what they need is different from what you need, so that each of you benefits. But, when it's a primarily cash transaction, you can't both end up with more money. So, unless value will be created somewhere else from the process (and don't include the +cash, because that ends up tacked onto the principle), this seems like paying for financial entertainment, and there are better ways to do that." There's a good explanation of this type of scam at the following link; It's known as a Spot-Delivery scam. https://www.carbuyingtips.com/top-10-scams/scam1.htm Also, I read this one a while back, and immediately this post reminded me of it: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/when-the-dealership-steals-back-the-car-they-just-sold-1636730607 Essentially, they claim you'll get one level of financing, let you take the car home, and then attempt to extort a higher financing APR out of you or request more money / higher payments. Check your purchasing agreement, it may have a note with something along the lines of 'Subject to financing approval' or something similar. If it does, you might be 'out of luck', as it were. Contact an attorney; in some cases (Such as the 'oppositelock.kinja.com' article above) consumers have been able to sue dealers for this as theft. The bank depends on the laws of large numbers.  They don't need to make money on every customer -- just on average. There are several ways that zero interest makes sense to them: You asked about banks, and I don't think you see this last scheme in use very much by a bank.  Here's why.   First, customers absolutely hate it - and when you drop the interest bomb, they will warn their friends away, blow you up on social media, call the TV news consumer protectors, and never, ever, ever do business with you again.  Which defeats your efforts in customer acquisition.  Second, it only works on that narrow range of people who default just a little bit, i.e. who have an auto-pay malfunction.  If someone really defaults, not only will they not pay the punishment interest, they won't pay the principal either!  This only makes sense for secured loans like furniture or cars, where you can repo that stuff - with unsecured loans, you don't really have any power to force them to pay, short of burning their credit.  You can sue them, but you can't get blood from a stone. "I've run into two lines of thinking on cars when the 0% option is offered.  One is that you should buy the car with cash - always.  Car debt is not usually considered ""good debt,"" as there is no doubt but that your car will depreciate.  Unless something very odd happens or you keep the car to antique status (and it's a good one), you won't make money off of it. On the other hand, with 0% interest - if you qualify, and remember that dealer promotions aren't for everyone, just those who qualify - you can invest that money in a savings account, bonds, a mutual fund, or the stock market and theoretically make a lot more over the 5 years while paying down the car.  In that case, you really only need to make sure you save enough to make the payment low enough for your comfort zone. Personally I prefer to not be making a car payment.  Your personal comfort level may vary. Also, in terms of getting your money's worth a gently used car in good condition is miles better than a new car.  Someone else took the hit on the ""drive it off the lot"" decline in price for you." it is possible that if you do not accept the offer, they will try offering you an even lower rate.  if they offered you close to 0%, you could start carrying a balance and find a better use for the cash you would have spent paying it off. there are plenty of investments with a guaranteed return of over 0%. personally, i am using a 0% offer from one of my cards to invest in the stock market.  i might lose that bet, but on average over the last 10 years, i have not. a pretty safe bet would be paying down your mortgage, or buying a cd that matures when the offer ends. that said, even a 10k$ balance might only pay you around 300$. is that worth the hassle to you? Someone did it for the Gen 1 volt.  Although they don't sell the upgrade, the batteries are limited in how much they charge so they can cycle thousands of times would degradation, and some think that the engineers were too conservative, so they hacked it to change 20% or so more. "There's many concrete answers, but there's something circular about your question. The only thing I can think of is that phone service providers ask for credit report when you want to start a new account but I am sure that could be worked around if you just put down a cash deposit in some cases. So now the situation is flipped - you are relying on your phone company's credit!  Who is to say they don't just walk away from their end of the deal now that you have paid in full?   The amount of credit in this situation is conserved. You just have to eat the risk and rely on their credit, because you have no credit. It doesn't matter how much money you have - $10 or $10000 can be extorted out of you equally well if you must always pay for future goods up front. You also can't use that money month-by-month now, even in low-risk investments. Although, they will do exactly that and keep the interest. And I challenge your assumption that you will never default. You are not a seraphic being. You live on planet earth. Ever had to pay $125,000 for a chemo treatment because you got a rare form of cancer? Well, you won't be able to default on your phone plan and pay for your drug (or food, if you bankrupt yourself on the drug) because your money is already gone. I know you asked a simpler question but I can't write a good answer without pointing out that ""no default"" is a bad model, it's like doing math without a zero element. By the way, this is realistic. It applies to renting in, say, New York City. It's better to be a tenant with credit who can withhold rent in issue of neglected maintenance or gross unfair treatment, than a tenant who has already paid full rent and has left the landlord with little market incentive to do their part." This is very much possible and happens quite a lot. In the US, for example, promotional offers by credit card companies where you pay no interest on the balance for a certain period are a very common thing. The lender gains a new customer on such a loan, and usually earns money from the spending via the merchant fees (specifically for credit cards, at least). The pro is obviously free money. The con is that this is usually for a short period of time (longest I've seen was 15 months) after which if you're not careful, high interest rates will be charged. In some cases, interest will be charged retroactively for the whole period if you don't pay off the balance or miss the minimum payment due. If a shop offers 0% interest for purchase, someone is paying for it. e.g., If you buy a $X item at 0% interest for 12 months, you should be able to negotiate a lower cash price for that purchase. If the store is paying 3% to the lender, then techincally, you should be able to bring the price down by at least 2% to 3% if you pay cash upfront. I'm not sure how it works in other countries or other purchases, but I negotiated my car purchase for the dealer's low interest rate deal, and then re-negotiated with my preapproved loan. Saved a good chunk on that final price! "Whether or not the specific card in question is truly 0% interest rate for the first 12 months, such cards do exist. However, the bank does make money out of it on the average: Still, 12 months of not having to think about paying the bill. Nice. This is exactly what they want you to do. Then in 12 months, when you start thinking about it, you may find out that you don't have the cash immediately available and end up paying the (usually very large) interest. It is possible to game this system to keep the ""free"" money in investments for the 12 months, as long as you are very careful to always follow the terms and dates. Because even one mishap can take away the small profits you could get for a 12 month investment of a few thousand dollars, it is rarely worth the effort."