Apple’s payments ambitions for 2022 🍎💳; Online checkout wars continue with new decacorn being born⚔️ 🛍 ; $2B VC fund from a crypto exchange? 🤔
Good Morning FinTech, January 17
Good morning Everyone,
And happy Monday! I hope you had some time to relax over the weekend and you’re fully recharged for the new week. To make the most of your Monday, here’s a mix of 3 great FinTech stories I’ve prepared for you today:
Apple’s payments ambitions for 2022 🍎💳
A fruitful year 🍉 2021 was a productive year for Apple. The most valuable company on the planet launched quite a lot of new products and services last year, including iPad Pro & iMac with its brand new M1 chip, AirTag, podcast subscriptions, among other things. All of this undoubtedly contributed to growing profits, an increase in brand value, and the fact that this year Apple became the first company ever to hit a $3 trillion market cap.
But I’d argue that it’s not the most interesting thing.
FinTech updates & upgrades 📲 In addition to the above, Apple has also released a set of updates to its payments business and other service upgrades in 2021. These are the most noteworthy ones:
Apple Pay’s global expansion. Apple brought its mobile wallet to 9 new markets in 2021 - including Colombia🇨🇴, Israel🇮🇱, and Mexico🇲🇽 - bringing its global footprint to nearly 60 countries and regions. The Apple Wallet also supports transit systems in more than 200 cities now.
New wallet features. Last year, Apple expanded its university ID program, which lets students keep a digital version of their college IDs in their wallet, to more universities in Canada and the US. It also enabled support for health insurance cards in Australia and hotel keys at select Hyatt hotels and some Disney passes in the US.
Family card. Last year, the tech giant launched the Apple Family Card, an extension of the Goldman Sachs-issued Apple Card that lets cardholders share their account with up to 5 family members. Key features include letting spouses and partners build credit together and giving some account access to users over 13 years old.
Zooming out, it’s clear that these and upcoming offerings (i.e. Apple is thinking of going into the BNPL game) clearly indicate that Apple has huge ambitions for more iPhone users to adopt Apple Pay. Here’s the takeaway👇🏼