Under the codename “Breakout,” Apple is building its own payment processing technology and infrastructure for future financial products, part of an effort that would reduce its reliance on outside partners over time, Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg News citing “people with knowledge of the matter.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
A multiyear plan would bring a wide range of financial tasks in-house, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. That includes payment processing, risk assessment for lending, fraud analysis, credit checks and additional customer-service functions such as the handling of disputes.
The push would turn the company into a bigger force in financial services, building on a lineup that already includes an Apple-branded credit card, peer-to-peer payments, the Wallet app and a mechanism for merchants to accept credit cards from an iPhone. Apple is also working on its own subscription service for hardware and a “buy now, pay later” feature for Apple Pay transactions, Bloomberg has reported.
Part of the project has been dubbed “Breakout” internally, underscoring the idea of breaking away from the existing financial system, according to the people… Last week, Apple acquired U.K.-based startup Credit Kudos Ltd., which uses bank data to make lending decisions. The company will likely tap that technology to help build its own infrastructure.
MacDailyNews Take: It makes perfect sense for Apple to eliminate the middlemen wherever possible.
I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. — Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004
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