Hi Rabbi, I asked this question recently on a public forum but never got a response. I was wondering if you had any insights: In Israel there are a couple of ways to purchase things without paying everything up front: 1) תשלומים -From what I understand this is basically an option given by companies to split the final payment into multiple different payment periods; the payment is made on a credit card, and until everything is paid off there is a limit on your card. There are usually options to split with no interest, and after a certain amount of "splits", interest is added to the monthly payments made and to the final price. This is clearly announced on the websites of companies that offer this form of payment and is factored in as something seperate from the original price. According to all the Rabbis I have talked to about this, using תשלומים with interest added is a violation of taking a loan with ריבית if the company itself does not have a Heter Iska. (It is on these responses that I base my questions. If anyone has other ideas in relation to this I would be glad to hear them.) 2) הוראת קבע - some companies, especially bigger ones, offer this option. Practically this is the same as the previous method, but without a limit being put on your card. More interesting is the fact that a lot of times, if you purchase in this way, companies dont necessarily say if they are charging you interest based on the original price or not. Sometimes there is an obvious hike in price for using this service based on other companies prices that dont offer this option. Sometimes its not clear, especially when multiple things are sold together using this method. Here are my questions: If its known that purchasing from a certain seller is more expensive due to the seller using the second method, can the item still be purchased according to the Halacha? If not, how about an item, or a group of items, that are less clear in terms of price?

The details of the Heter Iska are long and complex, and well beyond the concise scope of this site. For a comprehensive study, I suggest entering the site: https://www.iska.co.il/