Where some see a crisis, others see an opportunity.
The US financial system suffered turbulence last month when the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed and the Government took control of the institution. The shake-up affected other entities such as Signature or First Republic, medium-sized or regional establishments that ran out of funds to meet their obligations to customers.
The SVB marked the point of that earthquake, a bank that had worked mainly with technology companies.
Precisely Apple, the top in this sector, the most valued company, with around 315,000 million dollars, decided that it was time to take a step forward, despite the doubts surrounding the banking health.
Its new contribution is not an evolution of the Mac, nor a state-of-the-art iPhone or a watch that is almost able to read thoughts.
At this point in its business evolution, an adventure that was born in 1984, the Cupertino company made one of its most significant turns when it announced this week that, in partnership with Goldman Sachs, it is entering the competition for deposits banking
The apple-bitten company launched a high-yield account for savers. The remuneration is 4.15% per annum, an interest ten times higher than that offered by the competition. The average in the United States is 0.37%, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
This account is available alongside the credit card that Apple took out in 2019 and had 6.7 million holders by 2022.
This is the latest step into the financial services space, which includes the option for holders to “buy now, pay later” on hardware products.
Additionally, as a loyalty element, the account can be managed from the Wallet app on the iPhone, which can help keep consumers connected to the software ecosystem behind the devices.
This savings account requires no minimum deposit and is protected by the FDIC. There is a maximum balance of $250,000.
The favorable rate of return, combined with prestige and brand recognition, are considered attractive factors to lure new customers at a time of doubts about the stability of the banking industry, Wall Street analysts said.
In this sense, Apple Pay, its mobile payment system, is a dominant competitor in digital subscriptions, but in the field of this new service it will find much more contention.
It has the disadvantage that the money cannot be spent directly from the savings account, but must first be transferred to a checking account in the Apple Cash application. And while 4.15% is higher interest than the standard, there are at least five other online savings accounts that offer up to 5% per year.
"Experts agree that this latest offer from Apple is quite tempting," said Chanelle Bessette, banking specialist at NerdWallet, in statements to MarketWatch.
As Steve Cocheo illustrates in The Financial Brand, "thinking that Apple Savings is simply an offer for Goldman Sachs to collect deposits is like thinking that iPhones are great devices for making calls through a wireless service provider."
Apple doesn't play the same game as traditional financial institutions, which focus more on capturing and retaining deposits. Those from Cupertino would rather have an intention to capture and move.
They play to the advantage that more popular annual percentage returns such as Ally Bank's or Goldman Sachs' Marcus Deposit offer lower rates of 3.75% and 3.9%, respectively.
Given the collaboration with Goldman Sachs for the operation, the launch of Apple makes us think of the possible cannibalization of Marcus savings by the news offered by the technology company.
David Solomon, executive director of the investment bank, put this phenomenon into perspective.
"Obviously we've worked very closely on the overlap between who has the credit card and who has a Marcus deposit," Solomon explained to CNBC.
"We will observe very closely whether or not this cannibalism occurs", he acknowledged. "For us, this opens another deposit channel and it's always good to expand the base", he added.
But one thing is clear. Goldman Sachs has a reputation as a greedy bank, while "the special thing in this case is that Apple is Apple", according to experts.
