For Apple, privacy means not even securing data, but abstinence from it.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in an intriguing interview with Charlie Rose a couple of days ago (see below), explained how Apple “doesn’t want” to even hold consumers’ personal data, let alone analyze it. “Our business is not based on having information about you,” Cook said.

Cook’s statements are particularly relevant because Apple will soon enjoy not just the ability to “have information about you,” but to benefit from the data flowing through Apple Pay, which launches next month, by better understand when and where consumers spend their money.

But, more importantly, the Apple privacy stance is in stark contrast to, well, everyone else’s. Say what you will, but the tech world is pursuing deeper data with abandon. Consider Stripe. Stripe now offers Stripe Connect, which allows its developer-customers to allow their customers to build payments applications. Why? For two reasons: 1) because the developer’s customers can charge payments fees; and 2) for the data. Stripe promotes to its developer-clients the fact that through Stripe Connect, “After your user has successfully given you access to their Stripe account, you’ll be able to pull any data you’d like from the Stripe API.” That would be financial data, folks.

So while Cook takes the very high road, I can almost hear the snickering by financial institutions and startups alike. The game is the data, and if Apple wants to leave that to others — well, says the fintech world, that’s Apple’s loss.