Apple, which changed the world with the iPhone a little over 10 years ago, has been accused of stagnation under Steve Jobs' successor Tim Cook. The newly announced Apple credit card shows that the iPhone-maker is all out of fresh ideas.
The world's banks have been nervously watching Silicon Valley for years, worried that the kind of disruption tech giants have caused for retail, media, and transport could be coming for financial services.
Well, now it's finally happened but Apple's toe-dip into the banking and credit market shouldn't cause traditional banks to lose sleep. Not, at least, while the likes of Facebook, Square's Cash App, and bitcoin are changing the way people think about and use money.
Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has struggled to find an iPhone-like money spinner for the company.
GettyBanks are generally known as some of the worst innovators in the world, though that's not for lack of trying. Heavy-handed regulation makes it hard for banks to offer customers anything new or exciting.
One of the most often heard complaints from the U.K.'s booming financial technology, known as fintech, sector is that getting anything past the regulator, which has made a concerted effort to help nurture blossoming startups, is still too difficult and time-consuming.
Technology companies have long known that innovation, experimentation, and invention have been squeezed out of financial services and have wisely stayed away from what is a boring, if lucrative, market.
The Apple credit card, for which the actual banking is being handled by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs while the payments side is being done by Mastercard, is an Apple product in almost name only—sitting on top of and making much use of the far more interesting Apple Pay.
Apple's other announcements this week reveal a company that is struggling to find direction, looking to branch out to compete with Netflix's wildly popular streaming service and Google's recently announced streaming platform Stadia, while the closely-watched follow up to the surprisingly successful Apple AirPods has been seen as disappointingly incremental.
Apple's credit card boasts it will be different from traditional banks'.
AppleBanks need to look towards smaller players in the fintech sector, Facebook with its planned digital currency, and bitcoin and cryptocurrencies—currently being championed by Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey.
Financial innovation is coming from these companies, while bitcoin and crypto have already begun the long-term revolution. Apple is in danger of sinking into irrelevance.
