Good, because I see no value in having an American Express card. They're not accepted most places any more, probably because their merchant fees are exorbitant.
That's a load of BS...I put 99% of all my spending in the US on my primary AMEX card and have maybe been turned down by 1 or two merchants out of hundreds and hundreds and it's usually some chain that has a very exclusive VISA or MC partnership. AMEX is accepted virtually everywhere. You may not personally want to use one, but it's simply factually incorrect that they're "not accepted at most places anymore"
Well you must be a very luck and special person because almost all the retailers I had worked at or shop at don’t accept them. Glad you have your story and it works for you, but not so much for most of the people.
One thing I can personally vouch for is American Express's excellent customer service (I've been a cardholder for well over two decades, closer to three).
Most of the traditional AMEX charge card benefits skew heavily toward international travel. If you aren't a regular international traveler, you probably won't be aware of any of these benefits.
Due to its smaller payment network, AMEX is not a good candidate as everyday card. I use mine for big ticket purchases and travel related expenses but there are other cards that offer more for everyday purchases. American Express has saved my hide a few times over the years for travel related activities.
Even the Visa issued by my brokerage firm offers 2% cash back on all purchases, a better deal than Apple Card (money is periodically directly deposited to my primary brokerage account). A different card gives back 3% for restaurant dining but I use the brokerage Visa for 90% of my daily transaction.
At least in 2023, there's no one ideal card that will cover everything. It's better to have a few cards to take advantage of their individual benefits for each purchase situation.
We're not interested in an Amex partnership either lol. Mastercard all the way.
You understand that Mastercard isn't an issuing bank, right? It's a payment network. The Apple Card its a Mastercard currently. AMEX is both a network and an issuing bank. Even if the card continues to be a Mastercard, it will still need a bank like Chase or Wells Fargo to actually issue the card and service the accounts.
You understand Apple is big enough it could purchase a small bank with ties to Master Card and do just fine? They don’t need anything from anyone if they want to. So if the relation lead to a bad user experience and softening profits, what do you think Apple could do? Take it in house like they do with a lot of things.
1) No one is saying that Apple doesn’t have enough money to buy a bank.
2) This notion that Apple is above the law with your “they don’t need anything from anyone if they want to” comment is nonsense. Finance has a lot of legal concerns and oversight.
3) If Apple needs nothing from anyone then why didn’t they do this a long time ago? Why are they partnered with GS now and are looking for another issuing bank to partner with?
We're not interested in an Amex partnership either lol. Mastercard all the way.
You understand that Mastercard isn't an issuing bank, right? It's a payment network. The Apple Card its a Mastercard currently. AMEX is both a network and an issuing bank. Even if the card continues to be a Mastercard, it will still need a bank like Chase or Wells Fargo to actually issue the card and service the accounts.
You understand Apple is big enough it could purchase a small bank with ties to Master Card and do just fine? They don’t need anything from anyone if they want to. So if the relation lead to a bad user experience and softening profits, what do you think Apple could do? Take it in house like they do with a lot of things.
To have a bank in the US you either need to get a charter from the federal or state government. Those charters come with lots of red tape and regulatory requirements. One of the requirements is that at least every two years you have to open your doors wide open to bank examiners who will go through your books and review all your assets to determine which loans you need to charge off either partially or totally, go through all your bank’s policies to see if they comply with regulatory standards, make sure you are providing loans with no locational or demographical prejudices, etc. If Apple is willing to routinely go through all that and more they are welcome to it.
We're not interested in an Amex partnership either lol. Mastercard all the way.
You understand that Mastercard isn't an issuing bank, right? It's a payment network. The Apple Card its a Mastercard currently. AMEX is both a network and an issuing bank. Even if the card continues to be a Mastercard, it will still need a bank like Chase or Wells Fargo to actually issue the card and service the accounts.
You understand Apple is big enough it could purchase a small bank with ties to Master Card and do just fine? They don’t need anything from anyone if they want to. So if the relation lead to a bad user experience and softening profits, what do you think Apple could do? Take it in house like they do with a lot of things.
To have a bank in the US you either need to get a charter from the federal or state government. Those charters come with lots of red tape and regulatory requirements. One of the requirements is that at least every two years you have to open your doors wide open to bank examiners who will go through your books and review all your assets to determine which loans you need to charge off either partially or totally, go through all your bank’s policies to see if they comply with regulatory standards, make sure you are providing loans with no locational or demographical prejudices, etc. If Apple is willing to routinely go through all that and more they are welcome to it.
Thank you for this.
I have repeatedly pointed out over the past few years that consumer banking is one of the most heavily regulated industries. Many current banking laws originate from banking reform after the Great Crash of 1929. But each time there is some sort of financial crisis, more regulations are enacted. There were a bunch more after the subprime fiasco in 2008.
One thing for sure is that there will be more regulation in the future, not less. That two year asset examination policy? Someday it might be annual. It will never go to five or ten years.
The recent cryptotoken industry meltdown will also bring a *LOT* more scrutiny to that industry and many more regulations, not just to cryptos but to the banking industry overall.
Apple could have easily jumped into the financial services market years ago. Of course, there are plenty of companies that have divested themselves of their consumer loan businesses. AT&T is one. Anyone here have an AT&T Universal credit card? I did. It wasn't a co-branded card, they (AT&T) actually had an issuing bank.
The way these regulations currently work, Apple would have to open up all of their books to bank examiners, not just the banking sub-division. You know, to make sure they weren't using the bank to launder money.
That's why Apple picked Goldman Sachs and Green Dot Bank to be the actual banks. They can't just rent a building, put in a bunch of computers, slap the word "Bank" on the front and say, "We're open for business."
Apple is dragging dead weight by partnering with established members of the antiquated banking industry. They should do this in-house. Keep it lean and mean and modern.
Drives me nuts that the banking industry is still Monday-to-Friday, 9am-5pm for the most part, while at the same time pushing everyone to use electronic and mobile banking that don't involve humans being on duty. Combine that with timezones and 5pm Toronto time becomes 2pm Vancouver time, and it's often painful to get any banking done over the phone.
Apple needs to break away from this antiquated industry and show them how it should be done.
No AMEX they were the first card I ever quit using, their fees and such sucked. If what the article says Apple want to issues cards to just about anyone I can see where highend cards companies aren't going to be interested. I think whoever partners with Apple the card terms for the consumer is going to change a lot. Apple has extremely deep pockets why don't they back the card and just partner with some card to be the network of point of sales.
Apple immediately gets the sale proceeds and GS (or whoever the bank might be) gets stuck with trying to get their money back from the customer who, also now has the product.
Perhaps there needs to be a clause that "title" to the goods vest after the goods are paid for, just like in a car loan. One gets the car title when the loan is repaid. If not repaid, perhaps the serial number goes onto a Do NOT Service list sent to all Apple service centers.
I do not know if GS had any input to the criteria of the new customers to set some minimum levels of financial worthiness. The loss ratios are worrisome.
Banks better be careful, they don't want Apple to decide that they are too difficult to deal with and so start their own Apple Bank.
In terms of nomenclature, Apple Bank is already taken and has been since 1983. Plus, this being Apple they'd use some very generic term like Ledger or maybe even Bank.
Maybe Apple Bank will want to partner with Apple as their issuer.
Apple Financial, Apple Wealth, Apple Currency, Affluence, etc.
The name doesn’t really matter. They’ll brainstorm a great marketing name and launch.
Apple having so many revenue streams means they don’t have to get all greedy like a bank or credit corp. so they’d be free to revolutionize not only banking and credit, but digital transactions as well. Imagine operating your online store without the ridiculous transaction and service fees in addition to the fee for simply using whatever service.
It’s true that the banks and credit companies need to watch their moves. The last thing they need is to give Apple a reason to “iTunes” their business models.
I could see AMEX wanting to be one of a number of choices where other AMEX perks are included, but I can’t see them taking over the current Apple Card. I could see AMEX facilitating better integration of their cards in to the wallet app if Apple ever allows that.
We're not interested in an Amex partnership either lol. Mastercard all the way.
You understand that Mastercard isn't an issuing bank, right? It's a payment network. The Apple Card its a Mastercard currently. AMEX is both a network and an issuing bank. Even if the card continues to be a Mastercard, it will still need a bank like Chase or Wells Fargo to actually issue the card and service the accounts.
You understand Apple is big enough it could purchase a small bank with ties to Master Card and do just fine? They don’t need anything from anyone if they want to. So if the relation lead to a bad user experience and softening profits, what do you think Apple could do? Take it in house like they do with a lot of things.
To have a bank in the US you either need to get a charter from the federal or state government. Those charters come with lots of red tape and regulatory requirements. One of the requirements is that at least every two years you have to open your doors wide open to bank examiners who will go through your books and review all your assets to determine which loans you need to charge off either partially or totally, go through all your bank’s policies to see if they comply with regulatory standards, make sure you are providing loans with no locational or demographical prejudices, etc. If Apple is willing to routinely go through all that and more they are welcome to it.
Thank you for this.
I have repeatedly pointed out over the past few years that consumer banking is one of the most heavily regulated industries. Many current banking laws originate from banking reform after the Great Crash of 1929. But each time there is some sort of financial crisis, more regulations are enacted. There were a bunch more after the subprime fiasco in 2008.
One thing for sure is that there will be more regulation in the future, not less. That two year asset examination policy? Someday it might be annual. It will never go to five or ten years.
The recent cryptotoken industry meltdown will also bring a *LOT* more scrutiny to that industry and many more regulations, not just to cryptos but to the banking industry overall.
Apple could have easily jumped into the financial services market years ago. Of course, there are plenty of companies that have divested themselves of their consumer loan businesses. AT&T is one. Anyone here have an AT&T Universal credit card? I did. It wasn't a co-branded card, they (AT&T) actually had an issuing bank.
The way these regulations currently work, Apple would have to open up all of their books to bank examiners, not just the banking sub-division. You know, to make sure they weren't using the bank to launder money.
That's why Apple picked Goldman Sachs and Green Dot Bank to be the actual banks. They can't just rent a building, put in a bunch of computers, slap the word "Bank" on the front and say, "We're open for business."
As long as Apple’s financial details were kept confidential I doubt this would be much of a concern.
Comments
Well you must be a very luck and special person because almost all the retailers I had worked at or shop at don’t accept them. Glad you have your story and it works for you, but not so much for most of the people.
Most of the traditional AMEX charge card benefits skew heavily toward international travel. If you aren't a regular international traveler, you probably won't be aware of any of these benefits.
Due to its smaller payment network, AMEX is not a good candidate as everyday card. I use mine for big ticket purchases and travel related expenses but there are other cards that offer more for everyday purchases. American Express has saved my hide a few times over the years for travel related activities.
Even the Visa issued by my brokerage firm offers 2% cash back on all purchases, a better deal than Apple Card (money is periodically directly deposited to my primary brokerage account). A different card gives back 3% for restaurant dining but I use the brokerage Visa for 90% of my daily transaction.
At least in 2023, there's no one ideal card that will cover everything. It's better to have a few cards to take advantage of their individual benefits for each purchase situation.
2) This notion that Apple is above the law with your “they don’t need anything from anyone if they want to” comment is nonsense. Finance has a lot of legal concerns and oversight.
3) If Apple needs nothing from anyone then why didn’t they do this a long time ago? Why are they partnered with GS now and are looking for another issuing bank to partner with?
I have repeatedly pointed out over the past few years that consumer banking is one of the most heavily regulated industries. Many current banking laws originate from banking reform after the Great Crash of 1929. But each time there is some sort of financial crisis, more regulations are enacted. There were a bunch more after the subprime fiasco in 2008.
One thing for sure is that there will be more regulation in the future, not less. That two year asset examination policy? Someday it might be annual. It will never go to five or ten years.
The recent cryptotoken industry meltdown will also bring a *LOT* more scrutiny to that industry and many more regulations, not just to cryptos but to the banking industry overall.
Apple could have easily jumped into the financial services market years ago. Of course, there are plenty of companies that have divested themselves of their consumer loan businesses. AT&T is one. Anyone here have an AT&T Universal credit card? I did. It wasn't a co-branded card, they (AT&T) actually had an issuing bank.
The way these regulations currently work, Apple would have to open up all of their books to bank examiners, not just the banking sub-division. You know, to make sure they weren't using the bank to launder money.
That's why Apple picked Goldman Sachs and Green Dot Bank to be the actual banks. They can't just rent a building, put in a bunch of computers, slap the word "Bank" on the front and say, "We're open for business."
Apple is dragging dead weight by partnering with established members of the antiquated banking industry. They should do this in-house. Keep it lean and mean and modern.
Drives me nuts that the banking industry is still Monday-to-Friday, 9am-5pm for the most part, while at the same time pushing everyone to use electronic and mobile banking that don't involve humans being on duty. Combine that with timezones and 5pm Toronto time becomes 2pm Vancouver time, and it's often painful to get any banking done over the phone.
Apple needs to break away from this antiquated industry and show them how it should be done.
Probably for the same reasons others don't want to partner with them .... not much money in it right now.
Perhaps there needs to be a clause that "title" to the goods vest after the goods are paid for, just like in a car loan. One gets the car title when the loan is repaid. If not repaid, perhaps the serial number goes onto a Do NOT Service list sent to all Apple service centers.
I do not know if GS had any input to the criteria of the new customers to set some minimum levels of financial worthiness. The loss ratios are worrisome.