Do any American banks have contactless built into cards anyway? I don’t think most Americans even know it’s possible.
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Apple’s cash pile is astronomical ($245bn). When Monzo list, could they quite simply buy Monzo to boost their efforts in this space? They bought a headphone company (Beats) for $3bn. Buying a bank with well over 3m customers (when listing) seems decent value given this is part of their strategy.
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Interesting reading the “game over, fintech” narrative on social media.
If anything Apple moving into the market implies that Monzo, Revolut, N26, Chime etc are sailing into an ocean of a market rather than dipping their toes into a paddling pool. Rising tides and all that…
Exciting times!
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Does the ‘game over fintech’ sentiment also mean ‘game over banks’? HSBC aren’t going to go down without a fight. Goldman aren’t really a retail bank so there is upside for them. HSBC, Barclays etc. have significant downside if they hand over the front-end customer relationship to a pure tech play and resign themselves to being a back-end product factory/supplier/infrastructure provider.
100% agreed! 
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Feels to me there will be inevitable consolodation in this space to enable a critical mass capable of competing with Apple. Starling/Monzo merger? Haha
Apple Card is a credit card only in the US currently and will the same facility migrate across if it ever does, who knows.
I would suggest it is ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. Wouldnt bet against a facebook card popping up - maybe out of ireland
Wouldn’t go anywhere near a Facebook card 
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I don’t think we’ll see Apple going too in-depth in the fintech space at least for for some time.
This product (for now) as far as I can see is a way to:
- Push their premium brand.
- Push Apple Pay and make it the primary payment method where possible in the US and globally?
- Push Privacy (they are big advocates for this).
It’s interesting reading people on social media calling Apple a “bank”.
They aren’t, it’s similar to a co branded card (if I’m correct), but it’s amazing what a big brand can do.
This sort of tie up could change the definition of what a bank is to consumers.
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Id call it a partnership more than a cobrand would you not? Goldman offer the back office, apple the front office
Id say apple have had a big footprint on the app design and implementation. Co brand to me is just a merger of names rather than a merger of ideas similar to ba and amex
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Apple do have a habit of reinventing the wheel though and doing really well at it. They’ll have a huge amount of customers in no time.
I do doubt it’ll see light in the UK though because of the different fee structures as mentioned - perhaps one with fewer rewards will come over.
Also saw a comment saying hidden fees, but the only thing they seem to charge you is interest so it’s a pretty great deal for a credit card.
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In development time, perhaps.
I’d warrant they will be, almost instantly, ahead of Monzo in terms of users though.
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I see this too. I wonder if the ‘Get Apple Card’ banner remains in Wallet until you get one.
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It’s very smart because they get data on what you buy.
Given they’ve just also announced new services (TV, Gaming, News) this is another shift away from focusing on hardware/software revenue, towards the much more long term lucrative market that is subscriptions. Knowing what groceries you buy will definitely start to influence the TV and News apps so Apple Card is very very smart.
Actually, they don’t (unless you query a transaction I assume).
Apple doesn’t know where a customer shopped, what they bought or how much they paid.
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Hmmmm missed that nugget! I wonder if they get obfuscated data then, trends etc.
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What do people here think of the new apple card launched yesterday? Does Monzo still have a competitive edge as the giants in the tech world are now challenging the start-ups? I can hardly imagine the effect it might have when Amazon launch Amazon card
Amazon already have their cards in the US and UK, I don’t think here at least they’re all that popular.
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“the interbank charge is capped” what does that mean? It is capped in the US?
Thx !
In the US, the fee averages approximately 2% of transaction value. In the EU interchange fees are capped to 0.3% of the transaction for credit cards and to 0.2% for debit cards.
This fee is charged to the merchant you’re buying your goods or services from. It is then split between the card network + issuing bank.
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