Is this the point where Apple starts to demand 30% of all physical goods purchased through iOS? I mean why not? What's the justification for 30% of netflix or youtube subscriptions or digital goods in general? That same justification would seem to apply to physical items just as easily.
In any case I don't know the non-credit-card based payment systems in the USA and if any of them are taking off.
Here in Japan several have sprung up recently including PayPay by Softbank and they are currently charging 0% to retailers for the first 3 years and apparently 0% if the retailers signs up for their bank.
To customers they are offering 20% off all purchases up to $10 a purchase (so in other words $10 of a $50 purchase) and you're allowed to collect up to $500 total over the campaign. And they give you $5 to sign up.
It does make me wonder how credit card companies can possibly keep their lock. I'm guessing they'll try to get everyone else banned?
IIRC PayPay works via OR code so no need to go through Apple Pay (NFC) or similar and just as fast or faster. Potentially you could even use it without an app.
> It does make me wonder how credit card companies can possibly keep their lock. I'm guessing they'll try to get everyone else banned?
They offer perks. For example, I use cash-back credit cards for nearly everything, including with Apple Pay. It's like everything I buy is slightly discounted. The travel cards are also really popular. The perks offered by the non-credit payment systems are not as good and usually temporary.
The non-credit based systems are popular in countries where credit card use is less prevalent. Asian countries were largely cash-based until now, so it makes sense that electronic "cash" is the next step.
Because iOS has you by the balls for digital goods, but not for physical goods. It would also be far harder to impose an Apple tax for in-browser Shopping. If they made their own app, I would expect them to take a cut.
This comment seems out of nowhere. At this point apple offers Apple Pay at extremely low operating costs, low enough for banks not to charge extra for processing it from vendors. I heard they're lover than 0.5%
Speculative, but Apple and Goldman are the only ones who can do this because Apple's user base is not fragmented like Android device OEMs.
I'd watch this story.
By not having an existing card relationship, Goldman is the only one large and flexible enough to stand up new infrastructure that doesn't rely on supporting or integrating to legacy EMV protocols and infrastructure, which could allow for a closed loop between GS and Apple.
Even without a closed loop, Apple has a SE in their devices they can provision unique keys to during manufacture and this mitigates the main limitation of EMV tokenization, which was how to provision and manage tokens for offline payments mode, and who holds the risk/gets compensated for it.
With a closed loop, they don't need tokens, just a ledger, for which solutions exist.
Who loses? G&D, Oburthur, Mastercard, etc. I'd be surprised if this didn't happen.
That is simply a partnership where instead of cash back you get apple gift cards at rewards. So it's not rather notable Apple wise, since most cards you can redeem for Apple gift cards. Last year it was announced Apple is ending that card relationship and switching to Goldman. At that time it sounded like Goldman partnership would be similar but today's rumors suggest it maybe an actual Apple Branded credit card that is fully integrated into iOS which would be amazing. But of course there are so few details that it's hard to judge, but certainly interesting none the less to see what Apple could do in the credit card space.
Can you expand on how that is amazing? Maybe I'm just tired, but I don't see how it's any better than existing mobile payment options just because of some partnership. I can already hold my phone up to a compatible POS device and pay with my chase card.
For starters, Apple’s commitment to privacy makes me feel way better about them having my purchase data and being able to add value alongside my other personal data: potentially less opportunity for fraud, better offers, better purchase insights, etc. Maybe not “amazing”, but I can see some ways it could be quite nice compared to alternatives.
Generally I feel safer with Apple owning my phone data... but once you accumulate enough data in one company, the incentives for corruption and mis-use are too great. Let's not let more companies become "too big to fail" or "regulatory capture is a cost of doing business".
I would imagine they will have access to your purchase data, otherwise what is the point for Goldman? And you can bet they will be using that data for all sorts of investments. Similarly to how location data is used for all sorts of gain by large companies [1,2].
> Apple’s commitment to privacy makes me feel way better about them having my purchase data ...
Sure. The thing is, how long do you think this "commitment" is going to last?
I trusted Google in the early days and got burned when I realized how invasive and intrusive they had become, and were totally unapologetic about it. I do not see why Apple - a trillion dollar multi-national corporate - will be any different.
In fact, they already have a lot of data on you, especially if you use iCloud. And Apple has already started becoming intrusive under the guise of protecting our privacy -
e.g. "Oh we are going to block all multi-site pervasive tracking on Safari - to protect your privacy! But ofcourse, first we need to know what and all sites sets these cookies on your device ... and so we can't let you control your cookies. But don't worry, everything will be anonymized ..."
or
how IOS 12+ now deliberately makes it even more difficult to find the "Restrictions" setting panel that gives you fine grained control over allowing or restricting access to cameras, microphones, contacts etc. (it's now under - Settings > Screen Time and tap Content & Privacy Restrictions)
or
how ios 12+ "Screen Time" is designed to collect information on everything you do on your iDevice (even other iDevices and sync all that info through iCloud) ...
And so on ... so let's not kid ourselves that a for-profit CORPORATE is our best bet in protecting OUR privacy - they want you to believe that so that we don't use our collective will to pressurize our democratic government to make privacy enhancing laws and regulate companies that insist on collecting our data.
(On a related note, other governments have begun to recognize that defending their citizen's right can protect their country's interest and sovereignty. That is why EU has been tightening their laws. And this - https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-has-been-sharing-india... - explains why India, for example, is now insisting that US companies store their data in India).
> I trusted Google in the early days and got burned when I realized how invasive and intrusive they had become, and were totally unapologetic about it.
I'm assuming this was pre-gmail then, as they were very open about what they were doing once gmail came along, just very few of us actually understood the implications of what that meant at the time.
> e.g. "Oh we are going to block all multi-site pervasive tracking on Safari - to protect your privacy! But ofcourse, first we need to know what and all sites sets these cookies on your device ... and so we can't let you control your cookies. But don't worry, everything will be anonymized ..."
I don't think iOS has ever let you have fine-grained control over what cookies are present on your device. It's not that they've removed this option, they never added it in the first place. MacOS has this ability still.
> how IOS 12+ now deliberately makes it even more difficult to find the "Restrictions" setting panel that gives you fine grained control over allowing or restricting access to cameras, microphones, contacts etc. (it's now under - Settings > Screen Time and tap Content & Privacy Restrictions)
This is device-level restrictions, IE to prevent whoever's using your device from making changes, rather than app-level stuff. App-level stuff is even more prominent than ever. Settings -> Privacy
> how ios 12+ "Screen Time" is designed to collect information on everything you do on your iDevice (even other iDevices and sync all that info through iCloud) ...
iCloud sync disabled by default, opt-in, not opt-out. You have to turn it on if you want to have a view of all your devices from a single pane of glass. If you don't, and are happy checking each device individually, you can do that too.
Much like gmail, this was also announced very loudly, so you may be right that this is a warning of terrible things to come.
> let's not kid ourselves that a for-profit CORPORATE is our best bet in protecting OUR privacy
You are absolutely right. Unfortunately, privacy is like security - you have to trade between that and convenience. As far as smartphones go, most private and convenient option (for me) is an Apple device. Which sucks, as Apple is overpriced, and has a software stack that rivals Microsofts in the early 2000s. I use it because I'm locked into the eco-system and there's no "better" (subjective) alternative, not because I have any particular joy in using their products anymore.
> I'm assuming this was pre-gmail then, as they were very open about what they were doing once gmail came along
Actually, they weren't - in fact, it was after Gmail that their subtle marketing become louder that Google "does no evil" and would be a champion for your privacy. Google "reading you email" to show ads was controversial. They went to great length to try to fool us that data from their various products would never be combined and be isolated.
For example, they claimed that anyone using Google Adsense on a website wouldn't have any benefits in enhancing their presence on Google search results. But SEO's knew it long before Google themselves announced, that using Google Adsense on a website ensured that Google would crawl their website immediately.
You are right that very few of us understood the implications of what they were doing.
> I don't think iOS has ever let you have fine-grained control over what cookies are present on your device.
They did. Safari in IOS 7 had these four options for "Cookies and Website Data":
- Always Block
- Allow from current websites only
- Allow from websites I visit
- Always Allow
Where as now there is only "Block All Cookies" option. Naturally, you can't enable and use that since it breaks a lot of websites. And so we have to believe Apple that their "anti-tracking" is robust and actually works, while also allowing Apple to know every website I visit.
> This is device-level restrictions, IE to prevent whoever's using your device from making changes,
These subtle design changes are called "Dark Patterns" and intended to mislead and confuse the user.
An example of a dark pattern in a user interface is signing out of Gmail. If you remember, Gmail (as did Hotmail, YMail etc.) used to prominently show the LOGOUT / SIGNOUT link in top right corner, or in the bottom of their page. But then, they hid it in a drop down menu. So most users, confused, just closed their browser window when they couldn't figure out how to logout. Thus, allowing Google to better profile them by associating their search history using the Google Account / Gmail cookies. Now even Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook etc. all do the same.
Their earlier design was easier and better. Now they have just made it more UN-intuitive and confusing. This is deliberate, in my opinion.
> iCloud sync disabled by default, opt-in, not opt-out.
And sometimes, when you update ios / macOS, you suddenly find that all iCloud options have been enabled by default and all your earlier settings changed. I have noticed this once or twice in last 10 years or so since I started using iDevices.
> As far as smartphones go, most private and convenient option (for me) is an Apple device.
Try Sailfish OS on Sony Phones. ( https://jolla.com/sailfishx/ - this is the mobile OS that Apple is concerned about as it has all the features of a desktop OS with true multi-tasking, and yet is truly built for mobile with its gesture based ui (that Apple has copied from them).
Ofcourse, Sailfish OS still has to go a long way in offering the kind of device level and app level restrictions that ios offers, but I am hopeful it'll reach feature parity soon.
I think that's the highest interest rate I've ever had on a credit card. I applied for financing on my brand new 2005 MacBook Core 2 Duo. I made the minimum payment on it every month and ended up paying nearly twice the cost! (this was totally my choice - no fault of Apple or Juniper Visa/Barclay)
I remember me and all my friends buying Macs on credit from MacMall.
They would approve us while Apple wouldn't, we were only like 20 so we didn't have much credit history.
$3500 Mac (the most we could get approved for) with 20%+ rates, some of us were paying those thigns until 6-7 years later!
I learned at this point to never buy new if you didn't have to, and never buy a $3500 item if you couldn't use it to make money, and not just as a toy!
Probably worth it, since he got a MacBook Pro a year earlier than everyone else. For the rest of us, the MacBook Pros (started as the short-lived Core Duo models) weren't available until spring 2006. The Core 2 Duo models didn't exist until late 2006.
Then I most likely have the timeframe wrong. It was RIGHT when the Core 2 Duo came out. It was just the MacBook though... not a Pro. November 2006 sound right?
Well... I gave it to a child who subsequently tore the keys off of it. Overall, it was mostly okay. Superdrive rarely worked (it'd just eject discs randomly - started happening day 2) Logic board went in the first year. It was replaced by Apple, but I lost everything on the HD. HD went on year 4... I replaced it with an SSD. That lasted right up until the child incident. Who knows, perhaps I could still get it to boot. It was a fun machine to work with.
I hate these "could be" headlines. They could be doing anything. Apple could be working on making pigs fly. I don't think they are but they could be...
Apple Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plan to start issuing this spring a joint credit card paired with new iPhone features that will help users manage their money.
The card will be rolled out to employees for testing in the next few weeks and officially launch later this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The companies hope to lure cardholders by offering them extra features on Apple’s Wallet app, which will let them set spending goals, track their rewards and manage their balances, the people said.
Without 'could be' society would mostly be reactionary. There are huge industries associated with prediction.
Some may look at a potential Goldman+Apple partnership as a market changer, value adder, among many other things. In short, different data can have different value to different stakeholders.
> Without 'could be' society would mostly be reactionary.
I know you meant this in a strictly economic sense, but it strikes me that adding prediction to a reactionary society only changes what and when they react, not the fact that they're reacting in the first place.
On the surface this would seem to be a way to get to the processing fees and etc that occur with any transaction when it comes to Apple's systems. Considering the amount of money going through Apple for various things, this is probabbly a cheap deal to make with a lot of upside.
The fees per transaction charged by credit card companies seem crazy to me in 2019, in that they're exorbitant and bear no relationship to their actual costs. The industry really seems like it should be a candidate for anti-trust action.
I have no relevant domain expertise though, so I'd be interested to hear alternative viewpoints.
idk why you're downvoted; australia did exactly that recently - there's now a federal law capping credit card interchange fees at 0.8% maximum. The EU is now 0.3% max.
Of course that means that you dont get so many fancy rewards benefits, but thats kinda silly anyway (getting ~1% back in rewards in exchange for a ~3% tax on everything)
EDIT: also, it feels very discriminatory. Well off people get the fancy cards with the biggest kickbacks, poor people get shitty cards with no benefits, but everyone pays the hidden 3% tax....
> Of course that means that you dont get so many fancy rewards benefits, but thats kinda silly anyway (getting ~1% back in rewards in exchange for a ~3% tax on everything)
It's definitely kind of silly and it's definitely regressive, but your numbers are off. In reality, I get ~2% back in rewards in exchange for a ~0.25% tax on everything. The math for this works out because most transactions aren't made with credit cards. https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss...
I'd still support regulation that addresses this - either by directly capping interchange fees or using a different approach - but I personally won't be better off because of it.
fair point on the debit lowering the effective "tax".
I'll point to my edit and restate that its better for you, because you're well-off enough to get a 2%-back card. I'm guessing that the average across all cards/americans is much lower than 2%.
(i'm an immigrant to the US, and for the first few years all you can get is the crappy starter cards available to people with poor/no credit, that have no benefits. These days, im in your boat - i qualify for the fancier cards so im essentially making money of the back of everyone that doesnt. So i would be worse off too, but i think thats fine)
You can do it with credit cards as well. The trick is that the merchant must frame it as a “cash discount” and not a “card surcharge”. This means that the prices posted are the “full price” and then you can discount it on the cash.
There’s been a lot of back and forth on this over recent years, but this is my understanding of what’s currently allowed. Could change tomorrow if Visa changes their mind.
The FTC's website clearly says the merchant is free to offer a discount for different methods of payment, such as cash or debit card, so I don't think Visa has any power here.
>Discounts to Customers A PCN cannot stop you from offering your customers a discount or another incentive for using a certain method of payment, as long as you offer it to all your customers and disclose the offer clearly and conspicuously. For example, you can offer your customers a discount or a coupon if they pay with cash or a debit card rather than a credit card.
>Discounts to Customers A PCN cannot stop you from offering your customers a discount or another incentive for using a certain method of payment, as long as you offer it to all your customers and disclose the offer clearly and conspicuously. For example, you can offer your customers a discount or a coupon if they pay with cash or a debit card rather than a credit card.
>Discounts to Customers
A PCN cannot stop you from offering your customers a discount or another incentive for using a certain method of payment, as long as you offer it to all your customers and disclose the offer clearly and conspicuously. For example, you can offer your customers a discount or a coupon if they pay with cash or a debit card rather than a credit card.
Still, that kills any incentive for fee competition between cards - they all share the benefits of being convenient and face little pressure to change the fee structure.
Afaik, processing fees for higher-volume vendors are below 3% and kick-backs to consumers tend to be 1-3%. Is there much margin left for VISA, the bank, and Apple to share? Can anyone here can speak to this from inside experience?
There's also the revenue on interest for people who keep a balance (often 10-30% apr). I don't know how much would go back to Apple after the default risk, but its something to keep in mind for unit economics.
i don't know the numbers for each, but my understanding is that processing fees are paid to the card provider (visa or mastercard) and interest is paid to the issuing bank. visa isn't making money off the interest, and your bank isn't making money off the fees.
Makes sense, Visa isn't a bank per se so they don't want to carry the default risk and make worthiness decisions. I wonder what the split between Goldman Sachs / Apple is.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of credit card terminals installed in the US. The delta of potential improvement is small enough that there isn’t a huge motivation to change anything.
Debit cards use the same networks (well, sort of, see https://www.helcim.com/us/pin-debit/ ) and charge much less (using a debit card with PIN from a large bank, $0.22 plus 0.05%)
There are "better" payment networks, but they're regional, and run either by governments or nonprofit organizations. There doesn't seem to be much will in the US for banks to cooperate to form a nonprofit in order to undercut Visa/MC.
Money. It takes a lot of money to go to all the banks and convince them to switch credit and debit cards. Before that you have to convince the merchants to accept a new card network. That takes even more money.
This cost is why we saw some retailers attempt to make their own wallets. A wallet app is a bit easier to integrate for the merchants than a new card network. The downside is that consumers don’t care about wallet apps. We want our credit card rewards!
Presumably, a properly-implemented retailer wallet app would produce some economic surplus, which could be shared with consumers in order to convince them to participate?
Restaurants like Starbucks do exactly this. You pre-buy Starbucks credit that you later use to pay for coffee.
Starbucks benefits because they only incur transaction fees for every (say) $25 pre-paid block, instead of for every $3 coffee. Swipe fees decrease as a percentage of revenue.
> Starbucks benefits because they only incur transaction fees for every (say) $25 pre-paid block, instead of for every $3 coffee. Swipe fees decrease as a percentage of revenue.
They also incur benefits because money in hand and earning returns today for goods and services that will (maybe) be provided in the future is better than money received only at the point of sale.
I think cryptocurrencies were an attempt at this but apparently it's actually quite hard to make a resilient network that also has robust features and convenience
AMEX has historically had much higher fees than Visa or MasterCard. Depending on your age, you may remember a time when AMEX was not accepted everywhere. The fees are why.
They might not be true banks, but lots and lots of companies become enough of a bank to issue loans or credit cards... to customers that want to buy their products. e.g. car companies, department stores, gasoline companies, etc.
I had a buddy that worked for Caterpillar Finance, the credit arm of the folks that make heavy machinery like bulldozers. They issue loans to companies for purchasing their stuff, etc.
Should note: Apple does partnerships with entities while a new consumer behaviour is in approach, to learn from it and have the option of going 'fully monty' if/when the time arrives.
Before the iPhone, Apple did a big partnership with motorola on a phone that acted like an iPod and integrated with iTunes etc... I was essentially to wet their beak in the market and learn.
Apple cannot get computers right anymore, they're clever to try to diversify.
If they can create a credit card that steals 30% of the revenue from the company that actually created the product like they do with their App Store, they're set.
I have low expectations that this will be very revolutionary. Sounds like a standard no fee 2% cash back card. The only thing I can see is maybe the card is more deeply integrated into your iPhone or Watch than a typical card added to Wallet and a custom app to pay your bill.
If Apple had a payment system of their own built into the OS, the perennial observations that Apple are less evil than Google because they track less customer data, would ring a bit more hollow.
Not really. Google takes your data and tracks and manages it on their servers. Apple's take, on the other hand, does all machine learning and data-processing on the device itself which means that it never leaves your control. This could still be the case for the majority of that payment data. Even the current iteration of Apple Pay creates a temporary card number for banks so that they can't track user behavior across purchases.
How did you get that it is their main initiative for this year from this article? They have ~130,000 employees, so are you implying that a majority of 130,000 people are working on this main initiative over other things?
I'll be the first to say that Apple has not innovated much, if at all, over the past few years compared to other tech companies, but this seems a little hyperbolic.
And there's also no reason to think this is the only thing they'll do. I don't think it takes a majority of 130,000 to setup a deal like this but more than likely some people in finance and some people in legal while on the tech side people are still doing 1000 other things.
You seem to assume that the payment solution that will be offered won’t differ significantly from existing credit card solutions (from a business/technical point of view)
I seriously doubt many resources, comparatively speaking, are being thrown on this project from Apple’s side. It seems to be much heavier on the negotiation side for Apple, and most of the legwork comes from Goldman Sachs.
Epic's card processing is bigger than their entire Fortnite operation combined [1]
While running Fortnite we learned a lot about the cost of running a digital store on PC. The math is quite simple: we pay around 2.5 to 3.5 percent for payment processing for major payment methods, less than 1.5 percent for CDN costs (assuming all games are updated as often as Fortnite), and between 1 and 2 percent for variable operating and customer support costs.
On Apple's scale these cost are significant. + having its own card Apple can possibly scrap or significantly reduce the fees (and possibly their cut from apps/services) + provide further privacy and protection to its customers (after all, it's already one of the largest holders of financial info in the world).
2. This isn't the first Apple Credit Card, as noted else where, Apple had one with Barclaycard.
3. So What exactly is different between this one with Goldman and Previous one with Barclaycard.
4. This is US only. Much like Apple Pay Cash, is still not available anywhere else.
5. Why Doesn't Apple double down on Stored Value Payment Method? Where your Apple Pay hold "Cash" inside it and could be used for Apple Pay.
6. The Apple Wallet Implementation still sucks, 5 years after they announce they want to get rid of your Wallet. Nothing has Changed, nothing has been done. Those Discount / MemberShip Cards are still in my Wallet.
Basically I am not entirely happy with the progress of every Apple Services. Apple Map, Apple Music, Apple Pay......
Apple Map - Outside of US, Apple Map is literally useless in Asia. It is very good in China because all mapping Data belongs to Government. It was OK last time I used it in UK, but failed in many other parts of Europe.
Apple Music - It took them years to add basic thing like lyrics. Songs Selection were far inferior to Spotify on International Level. Songs are missing on a yearly License renewal basis. And when they were added back, they have a different ID so your previous play list don't include them anymore.
Apple Pay - Pay Cash only in US. Many of the Points and Rewards System aren't even available when using it. They are finally figuring out Transit, but it is slow process.
Apple News - Outside US?
iMessages - I know many are happy with it. But the system constantly have issues with Groups where some people don't receive message. Comparatively Line, KakaoTalk, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc... None of them had any problems.
In any case I don't know the non-credit-card based payment systems in the USA and if any of them are taking off.
Here in Japan several have sprung up recently including PayPay by Softbank and they are currently charging 0% to retailers for the first 3 years and apparently 0% if the retailers signs up for their bank.
To customers they are offering 20% off all purchases up to $10 a purchase (so in other words $10 of a $50 purchase) and you're allowed to collect up to $500 total over the campaign. And they give you $5 to sign up.
https://paypay.ne.jp/
Also surprising is Paidy run by DMM (a company that makes the majority of their money selling porn but has been branching out like crazy)
https://paidy.com/
It does make me wonder how credit card companies can possibly keep their lock. I'm guessing they'll try to get everyone else banned?
IIRC PayPay works via OR code so no need to go through Apple Pay (NFC) or similar and just as fast or faster. Potentially you could even use it without an app.