Apple today unveiled its plans to launch a virtual credit card product with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard this summer called Apple Card, which will reside within the Wallet app on Apple devices. An accompanying physical card, made of titanium, with a laser-etched name but without a card number, CVV code, expiration date or signature, will also be available.
Jennifer Bailey, VP of Apple Pay, said during an Apple Special Event that users can sign up for the card on their iPhone and start using it in a matter of minutes. Users can also keep track of their weekly or monthly spending, their minimum payments due, and transaction history, which Bailey said will be untangled and cleaned up through the use of Apple Maps and machine learning.
Apple Card has a feature called daily cash, which is a 2% cashback reward that pays out every day the card is used. Direct purchases from or through Apple carry a 3% cashback rate. Additionally, the physical card offers a 1% cashback rate.
“It’s cash, real cash, so you can do anything you want with it,” Bailey said.
Bailey said Apple Card will have no late fees, annual fees, international fees, or over-limit fees, and that it will charge a low-interest rate that won’t go up if a user misses a payment.
On privacy, Bailey said each payment made with Apple Card includes a one-time dynamic security code, meaning every purchase is authenticated with touch or face verification. She said Apple also won’t know what you bought, where you bought it, or how much you paid, as that information will be stored on devices, not servers. She also said Goldman Sachs will never share or sell user data to third parties for marketing or advertising.
In other news, CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay is on target to pass 10 billion transactions this year.
“This is huge,” he said. “We’re looking forward to a future where all payments are made this way.”






