Apple and Goldman Sachs are setting a standard here that ought to be admired. Plenty of other credit cards are letting you skip payments too, sure, but they’re still all the while charging you compounding interest. Friends I’ve spoken to with more significant credit card debts have told me that the interest is killer, so to take a much needed payment holiday could leave them with more debt than they can afford later.
It’s nice, yet also unsurprising, to see Apple take things a step further and pause the interest too.
Given that Goldman Sachs already has a retail presence here in the U.K., I would have thought we would have been the next logical step for an international rollout. Interesting that Australia appear to be first on the radar.
Don’t think it’s been mentioned on here but Apple was granted the Trademark for Apple Card here in the UK last January… maybe delayed due to COVID if they’re planning on releasing it to us?
I think we’d need to see the transaction fee structure align closer to that of the US first --or we are unlikely to see the really useful parts of Apple Card such as Daily Cash. There’s not enough of a fee to pass on to the consumer, unless they charge an annual fee like Amex.
If we start seeing Apple Pay Cash here, maybe Card will follow, but I don’t see it happening before then. Without the cash element it’s just another credit card account…and another white metal card that is prone to staining by…wallets.
No conjecture, just a guess on my part. With the economy in turmoil, and jobs at risk, it’s not really the best climate for launching a credit card.
Friends and family back in San Jose who work at Apple and keep teasing me I’ll be able to get one soon. A few have asked me if I have one recently which suggests they were expecting it to have been available by now. None of these are directly involved on the team behind Apple Card though.
I believe there’s a huge increase in hiring around the Apple Card word in the UK, including @Rika moving to work there. But could be other parts of the Apple Payment network that Rika’s working on, but I do believe it was Card based from a previous tweet I saw.
Our bank to bank payments services are leagues ahead of what’s available in the US. Apple Cash Card would offer little in the way of benefits to us.
Apple Cash is provided by green dot bank. They don’t provide retail services in the U.K., which make it much harder to passport. This is not an issue with the Goldman Sachs backed Apple Card.
Apple Card brings more to the table beyond the features tailored for a US market. Without the benefits Apple Cash provides to US customers, it’s no different than just good old faster payments transfers here.
Fair reasons but (IMHO) strategically the big plus for Apple would be that Apple Pay Cash could drive Messages use outside the US and provide a point of lock in.