Apple is launching a no-fee, high-yield savings account with Goldman Sachs for its credit card customers, underlining the tech giant’s ambitions to offer more financial products to its billion-plus iPhone users.
Apple said the high-yield savings account would be available to Apple Card customers “in the coming months”.
“Savings enables Apple Card users to grow their daily cash rewards over time, while also saving for the future,” Jennifer Bailey, vice-president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in a statement.
Apple’s banking ambitions emerged eight years ago with the launch of Apple Pay and have now expanded to include credit cards and instalment lending.
The new savings accounts deepen Apple’s ties with Goldman, which worked with the company on its Apple Card but only has a minimal role in Apple Pay Later, its buy now, pay later product that was announced this year but has not launched.
Goldman offers its own high-yield savings account through its Marcus brand, although its push into retail banking has come under scrutiny following years of losses and escalating costs. The bank also disclosed in August that the US consumer finance regulator was investigating how it manages accounts in its credit card business, which includes Apple.
Users of Apple’s wallet app can already earn “daily cash” credit card rewards which they can share with others or deposit into a linked banking account. The top “high-yield” accounts give users an interest rate of about 2 per cent, according to NerdWallet. Apple did not disclose what the interest rate of the new product would be.
The move is one of the clearest signals of Apple’s widening ambitions in finance as it seeks to bring services directly into its digital wallet.
JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon in June highlighted Apple’s efforts when discussing the “brutal” competition ahead in the banking industry.
“They’ve already got the Apple Wallet. They want to give you some kind of credit journey experience,” he said. “They’re going to do merchant processing, they’re going to do merchant lending. It may not be their own balance sheet. But that’s a bank. That’s a bank. It may not have insured deposits, but it’s a bank. If you move money, hold money, manage money, lend money, that’s a bank.”
Apple’s credit card launched in August 2019 and is available only in the US. The Apple Card offers 1 per cent cash back while Apple Pay, its contactless payment system, offers 2 per cent.
Apple job listings refer to its “Apple Wallet, payments and commerce” unit — a division formerly known as Apple Pay. It is part of Apple’s services division, which is playing an increasingly important role in driving the company’s margins and earnings momentum at a time when iPhone growth is limited.
Last quarter, revenue from the services unit, which also includes App Store and digital media purchases, grew 12 per cent to $19.6bn, with 860mn users worldwide paying for at least one recurring subscription.
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