Apple aiming to bring payment processing and infrastructure in-house under new multi-year project, report suggests
Apple is working on its own payment processing technology and in-house financial infrastructure for risk assessment for lending, fraud analysis, credit checks, and more, according to a new report by Bloomberg, suggesting Apple is looking to “reduce [it’s] reliance on outside partners” such as Goldman Sachs as part of a new top-secret project called project ‘Breakout.’
According to the report, project ‘Breakout’ is a multi-year plan that would bring a wide range of financial tasks in-house, citing people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Should the plan go ahead, Apple would have its own team of employees working on everything from credit checks, risk assessment for lending and loans, credit checks and additional customer-service functions such as the handling of disputes.
Apple currently works with Goldman Sachs Bank and CoreCard, with the plan seemingly aiming to break away from the dependency on third parties.
The news follows after Apple acquired Credit Kudos, a British firm that provides information to lenders from the UK’s open banking framework to offer faster, automated decision-making about loans earlier this month. It was originally believed that the acquisition could be linked to an expansion of Apple Card in the UK however, it now would appear that the buyout could be linked to project ‘Breakout.’
It was also reported this month that Apple is working on a new hardware subscription service that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app subscription, described as “Apple’s biggest push yet into automatically recurring sales.” The new subscription would allow customers to subscribe to hardware, such as the iPhone and other products, for the first time, giving users the option to pay for products through a monthly subscription, similar to how digital services like Apple Music and Netflix charge their customers.
Based on today’s report, the rumored new Apple hardware subscription service could also be linked to project ‘Breakout.’
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