Fintech startups are not as disruptive as they might be because they are not “full-stack” companies, Ron Shevlin wrote at Forbes. Can Apple beat them at their own game and became a full-stack bank, he wondered? Probably not.
Apple likes to tout that its new credit card was created “by Apple, not a bank.” I guess we should pay no attention to the folks from Goldman Sachs and MasterCard behind the curtain. Apple’s moves with Apple Card, Apple Pay, and Apple Cash are big moves towards a full(er)-stack bank, but the company is hampered by one big weakness: It’s DNA is in tech products. For all the innovative moves Apple makes across industries like financial services, entertainment, and health, one thing is constant: It wants to sell devices. This prevents Apple from achieving the openness needed to become a full-stack bank.
Check It Out: Apple Can’t Become a ‘Full-Stack Bank’
The other reason is that if you’re a bank, you get regulated. I’m sure Apple doesn’t want that.
This is the reason that GE Capital didn’t get bigger than it did (just under 40%). Jack Welch didn’t want GE to be regulated.
If you read the Secret Service website, its top priority is protecting the US financial system, then the president and other important people. There is NOTHING (not even the arms business, nor the oil business) more important than US banks and disruption will not be possible. As the biggest corporation in the world, Apple might be able to slide into the banking business with the blessing of the establishment, once Apple has sold its soul enough.
Partnering with Goldman, MasterCard, pharma (over some dementia BS), health insurance companies over Watch, welcoming Boeing/military industrial complex to Apple’s board, and even employing Mr Flash (Kevin Lynch – self professed Jobs opponent, purveyor of either the unluckiest or most deliberately security prone software) at ‘the heart of Apple technology’ – in my opinion, Apple is well on the way to selling its soul. Sure they have a few environmental and social initiatives as a smoke screen (look up moral self-licensing), but there’s a reason Apple is reviving the rainbow logo. Apple is as far from its hippy roots as it has ever been – zillion dollar hippy, my a#5e. Cook’s Apple it turning into the New Coke Apple. Who cares if the keyboard doesn’t work… look over here at our social initiatives.