Quite possibly - but pretty much every other card with Contactless seems to be ok with having it. That’s what the £30 limit is in place for.
My thoughts revolve around the fact that the US credit card market is very different to the UK and Europe.
Our interchange rates - what merchant, acquirer, issuers and card schemes pay/charge in the value chain, are capped by EU law, and are significantly lower than in the US. Generally this limits the reward programmes that Visa & MC can offer here.
For this reason, I think that this product would make more sense as an Amex card in Europe - mainly so that Apple can continue to offer these high unlimited (subject to credit limit) cashback rewards. Even if they did that, it would still be a compelling product.
And the physical card is just 
It’s not a threat to Monzo however, it’s only a credit card - not a bank account. I would say that it provides the rising tide effect to all the other players - it shines a spotlight on alternative (i.e non top tier bank) fintech/finance products.
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That’s true, but I do think the security of not having it is a bonus. If I didn’t have Apple Pay (or any other mobile wallet option), then I would prefer to take the risk of having a physical card with contactless, given the £30 limit.
However, as a user of Apple Pay, and someone who uses Apple Pay for 95% + of my transactions, I would prefer a physical card which doesn’t have contactless, nor the card number/CVV etc. I don’t like the security issues of carrying a bunch of cards around which contain all that info/contactless ability.
Edit: so in the future (whilst around the world contactless is not everywhere), I would love a Monzo card which is just like the Apple designed one: minimal and without any info which could compromise security!
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I don’t think it’s that simple, though. The interchange fee cap doesn’t just apply to Visa and Mastercard: it applies to all transactions involving four parties. So, if Apple were to partner up with Amex, for example, those transactions would be subject to the cap. The alternative, of Apple creating its own payment network, seems… difficult.
It’s worth noting that contactless on the card is not an expected feature in the US.
All-titanium (not just all-metal) cards can’t support the antennas required for contactless, though I’m sure this could have been designed in if it was a requirement but it would have meant compromise.
The physical card is absolutely a fallback for when Apple Pay isn’t available. For the many magnetic stripe and chip terminals in the US that don’t support Apple Pay. I don’t think the lack of contactless in a US credit card should be that controversial. 
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Very true. I forget the US are relatively behind in general when it comes to Fintech. I think it would possibly be more of an issue if it was to release over here?
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Yes - but as Amex is the issuer, and the card scheme and merchants deal with them as an acquirer directly - they hold a lot more of the value in the fees.
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Sure – but with co-branded Amex cards, those fees are capped at 0.3%. Apple Card’s cashback rates simply wouldn’t be viable.
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It’s a bit ironic that he starts with “Seeing so many bad/misinformed hot takes about Apple Card” but then goes on to incorrectly state that there will be foreign transaction fees despite Apple saying there wouldn’t be 
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He highlighted a slide from the keynote showing a foreign transaction charge on a statement - but the statement was an example Apple was showing of other credit cards, not their own!
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It’s also only for Apple users, how can it be competitive in the banking market if only half the current population have access to it. As their phone sales are dwindling this is a last gasp play to ring fence users into their ecosystem 
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It’s expected but not in the US. In the US people will be shocked if you tap your card, they mainly use contactless with Apple / Google Pay.
I thought it was more they didn’t quite have Contactless in a mainstream capacity yet?
The attraction, apart from the 3% cashback is essentially no fees (only the interest is there, no late payment fees, going over the balance fees, foreign exchange fees, etc). Plus a titanium card for free that Revolut here is charging £12.99/month for.
And on top of that, the benefits that only the challenger banks are doing now - instant notifications, friendly merchant names, budgeting/stats of your spending. Not to mention this was all built having your privacy in mind, like with some stuff having to be generated and calculated on your phone rather than sending all that detail to Apple. This is beautiful.
Considering all of the above combined, none of the banks or “banks” have that (obviously they do some parts of that if you’re lucky, but this is quite a complete package, and a good one too, well the only one on the market to be exact). It’s a no-brainer really.
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Pretty well covered here
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This is a very interesting read 
Interested to see if the same algorithms to populate the rich merchant data will be rolled out to other non-Apple wallet cards.
See:
For now, just standard stock image.
Wasn’t Mastercard mandating contactless on all cards starting April? That doesn’t apply to America?
Tell that to all issuers marketing cards giving 1 to 5% throughout Europe. That interchange excuse seems to be pretty popular in the UK tough
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It’s Apple though - if Apple wants something doing MasterCard probably let them run with it. It makes sense for it not to be contactless though as the point is that you use Apple Pay which has the same effect and there’s no limit to what you can spend through it.
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