Half of Apple fanbois would bank with the iPad titan One in 10 punters polled in the US and UK admitted they would bank with Apple if the iPad maker decided to move into the money sector. Among Apple product owners, 43 per cent of those quizzed would consider dumping their current banks for the iPhone biz. Two thirds of the 5,000 surveyed fanbois said they'd switch to a notional …
Apple will slowly migrate to other, tangental businesses. They started in computers, then expanded into MP3 players and music sales, phones, application sales and now look like they may take a serious stab at TV. Thing is, banking is so far removed (except for people paying for their stuff) that I think it would be too big a leap to make sense at this time. As a stockholder, I'd rather see the company offer huge dividends (after putting a fortune into R&D), if they have too much incoming money to know what to do with and "enough" in the bank already (like they have now).
Read the article again.
"David Rankin, boss of the research consultancy behind the study KAE, believes banking is an obvious next step for the computer makers:"
(David Rankin - who he? - ed)
Does anyone at Apple believe this? Has anyone at Apple even considered this? If so, has it even been mooted?
I'm sure that, knowing Apple's very high public profile, a research consultancy would not implement some totally spurious survey just to wallow in the resulting publicity...
No because it's so obviously stupid.
43% of Apple fanbois would also buy an Apple car and fly Apple Air and use an Apple fridge and microwave. How could Apple possibly resist?
Great, what?
Apple want to spend their money they can pay dividends, buy back shares, give their employees big bonuses, build fabs of their own.. Buy Intel..
Truth is Apple isn't actually that rich or big a company. It would be far easier to ask why Boeing wouldn't. Well, because it's stupid.
Err... well, Boeing does have their own bank. (Well, sort of, not really, but, yes. :) It's not a bank, it's an employee credit union: BECU.
Similarly, one of the IKEA related companies IKANO Group, owned by Ingvar Kamprad and family, has a bank: IKANO Bank. There are many other examples.
Mostly, they server a specific user group or support a particular organisation.
In the case of Apple and this survey, the implication from the results is that it would be a good idea applying the Apple brand and the brand's positive halo effect, to a new venture. In the survey example, banking. But I think it could be applicable to other markets or industries, too.
I mean, Apple makes mobile phones?! C'mon, when they were busy selling Apple ii and the first Macintoshes, who'd of thought they'd make mp3 players and phones..?
" I mean, Apple makes mobile phones?! C'mon,whentheywerebusyselling Apple ii and the first Macintoshes, who'd of thought they'd make mp3 players and phones..?"
Considering that mp3s didn't exist then, let alone portable players and mobile phones, I'd have a wild stab at 'none'.
That aside - It's "who'd HAVE thought"!!
For example, who'd have thought that Compaq (also a personal computer manufacturer) would develop the world's first hard disk based portable digital music player? (3 years before Apple released the IPod by the way)
Gee Voland, maybe you should go talk to Tesco et all about their Obscene cut.
if anything, since developers get 70% of the retail price (try getting that anywhere else) wouldnt an iBank give you something like 70% of the Bank of England rate on your savings.
But of course, you lot would still winge about the stolen 30%....
iPaid? or for our fave comentard Barry apple
http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/barry - Medium to large fruit with an intense solid dark red skin. Lasts 3 months in storage.
or Belmac - a very good flavoured apple type!
of for the real fan - http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/bright-future
I wouldn't bank with 'em. I wouldn't bank with any of 'em if I was given a choice.
I've heard it said that the big American car manufacturers eventually became sellers of financial products (hire purchase etc) with an attached car factory. Ho hum.
During the recent 'Apple Dividends' story I was thinking of where else the company could go to continue their expansion. Having not considered finance, the only big-enough sector that I could come up with was 'defence'.
A la Samsung Techwin ( Youtube: 'Samsung Techwin Defense Program' for classic Troy McClur-style voice-over)
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I don't care if its Apple or Microsoft (which mobile device I happen to use & enjoy) or others such as Nokia, Motorola and/or Google... Trusting such a company to keep your money is dumb and utterly stupid.
Because at first these are IT companies, whereas banks usually need to meet totally different requirements. For example; under Dutch law our banks are - required - to join a mutual funds which ensures that the bank customers won't lose their money should the bank for whatever reason suddenly go bankrupt.
DO you really think IT companies would even bother to setup such safety nets? Worse; that governments can actually enforce them to setup something similar if they do insist on starting "bank like" services ? I have some very serious doubts there.
Either take your money to a bank or keep it in an old sock. Either way you'll be better off than trusting an (IT / non-financial) company to hold your money.
Plenty of people dabble in financial services. There's no reason why Apple can't sneak into it by, for example, not using someone else's credit card behind near field communication payments.. just insist appletards use Apple's own 'virtual credit card' and if they want they can then start issuing plastic cards to go with those accounts. They can then start financing people advances so that they can take an upgrade to their next iPhone - if they could cut mobile phone operators out of the picture and just have them do line rental then it's another locked in step of profit for Apple. Once they've got basic consumer lending sorted, they can start taking deposits - regular saving type accounts so that people can save for their next Apple. Once that's done, and most of their hardcore sycophants are using their iPhones to pay for everything then it's not much of a step for them to start doing their bank accounts too.
The two big problems for them doing mainstream banking are that the profit margins are nowhere near what their other stuff cuts, but the main one is that appletards love showing off their iPhones and feel it's a status symbol. Would an Apple debit card really do the same?
You have interest on your deposits? Not the biggest Apple fan but really, does it really look like the current lot have actually done what you have just suggested? As much as Apple are selfish, greedy bastards - it's hardly any different from most of the current lot - at least they have some attempt to address the user experience - when was the last time a bank did that?
Who are? All this survey is telling us is Apple customers have strong respect for the brand. Buying something from another division of a company you have good history with isn't being a lemming, it's common sense.
Still seems a very weird idea though. I would say an Apple car would be better than an Apple bank. iCar can innovate electric cars and use tech for self-driving, blah blah blah.
The chairman of Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, said this last year:
“Corruption and fraud at Samsung Techwin came to light accidentally but I think it is pervasive in the whole group,” Lee told reporters on Thursday. “This is a growing source of concern for me and I am going to take issue with it.”
This from someone who has been convicted of tax evasion, had to stand down for 2 years whilst he was investigated for bribery (not proven) and corruption (3 year suspended sentence).
I'd pass on Bank of Samsung too tbh.
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Once they were sitting on a money pile from early 3 Series profits, they went into financial services to fund their products. Worked for them. BMW hates it when you walk into their dealers and haggle with cash.
If Apple wants to get a bigger and steadier slice of disposable incomes, isn't this the way to go?
This could be a great way for apple to further use their assets abroad without having to pay tax repatriating them. Their warchest in the US is spoken for, they have their old policy of keeping cash for opportunities, investing in the supply chain etc and also the newly announced measures (dividends, buybacks etc). I doubt they would want to touch their US funds much, but those foreign funds, whilst I doubt they are idle, could be used.
Apple is huge (and given apples market cap is the same ball park as the top 5 mining companies in the world combined, possibly a little overvalued) and they face a huge task in staying where they are. IBM took a long time to find itself again, I can't see them disappearing. but big companies have hit serious trouble before. Something like this could make or break them.
They probably have many ideas about what to do with their stockpile, I'm sure a banking would have been mentioned at some point. As mentioned car makers made good money on financing. Apple I believe uses Barclays for financing their B2C sales, they could start by moving that inhouse, then credit cards would probably be the next logical step then a 'savings bank' (to build up US based deposits) before moving into a brick and mortar full service bank.
We are all shredding our documents hiding PIN's and setting privacy filters so why on gods earth would anybody outside of an asylum let a giant unaccountable corporation in a foreign land have access to our money in addition to , all our history, personal details, browsing, searching blogging , access to website purchasing information and location? Google are trying it though they have no published plans to become a bank ....yet! I've spent twenty minutes disabling features on a phone and they still managed to pass all my contact details through their server time has come to say enough unless you already have an apple/google barcode tattooed on the back of your neck.
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