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).
