Apple Developing In-House Payment Processing Technology for Future Finance Products

Apple is working on a multiyear plan to bring its financial services in-house in the future, cutting down on the need for financial partners.

Apple is developing payment processing technology and infrastructure that includes lending risk assessment, fraud analysis, credit checks, and dispute handling, plus it is working on tools for calculating interest, rewards, approving transactions, reporting data to credit bureaus, increasing credit limits, and more. Apple would be moving away from the current financial systems that it uses as part of the project called Breakout.

Apple works with a number of financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Bank and CoreCard for the Apple Card, Green Dot for Apple Cash, and Citizens Bank for the iPhone Upgrade Program, but according to a new report, Apple will focus on future products rather than its current products.

Apple already has Apple Pay and Apple Card, plus it is developing a future subscription service for hardware.

The Apple Pay feature is expected to be the first product to use it. There will be an option for a four-payment Apple Pay purchase and an option for long-term payment plans.

In the future, Apple could also use its new system for the hardware subscription plan that it has in the works, as well as serve as lender for more and later services. Apple could limit risk by requiring customers to use debit cards, as well as using its in-house risk assessment tools to determine whether a credit card attached to the App Store can be used for payment.

There is a chance that Apple could delay its plans or continue to work with partners, though this is a very unlikely scenario.