Apple Card Makes Credit Cool

Naysayers doubt the success of the Apple Card, but they doubted the AirPods too

Julian Vel
OneZero
Published in
5 min readAug 21, 2019

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The Apple Card, presented at Apple’s product launch event on March 25, 2019.
The Apple Card was unveiled earlier this year at the Apple launch event on March 25, 2019. Photo: Michael Short/Getty

IfIf you’d asked Apple customers late last year what they were most looking forward to from the company that regularly flirts with a $1 trillion market cap, they’d likely have mentioned a new iPhone, an updated MacBook, or the (now shelved) AirPower wireless charging mat. It would have been incredibly left-field for anyone to say “a credit card,” yet here we are.

Apple married the contactless payment standard with two-factor authentication when it first released Apple Pay in 2014. Apple later expanded into the peer-to-peer (P2P) payment market with Apple Cash (the artist formerly known as Apple Pay Cash) and now continues its foray into financial services with Apple Card.

Apple Card was first teased on March 26, 2019, at a “Special Event,” where it was held up as the ideal credit card for the digital age. According to the Apple Card product page on Apple.com:

“It represents all the things Apple stands for. Like simplicity, transparency, and privacy.”

The privacy aspect, in particular, is bolstered by the following:

  • The digital card is housed in Apple’s secure mobile payment service and digital wallet (Apple Pay).

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