with a traditional magnetic stripe on its back, plus
a built-in chip. The physical card will not, however,
be contactless, so it won’t support Apple Pay.
You won’t need to pay extra to obtain the
physical card or even to replace it if you lose
it. On the subject of fees, you won’t need to
pay any annual, international, late-payment
or over-limit fees when using the Apple Card,
although missing a payment or making it
late will still see you paying interest – you just
won’t have to worry about your interest rates
increasing. Therefore, the card interface in Wallet
encourages you to pay off your balance quickly.
Besides, making prompt payments will be good
for your credit score – and with the Apple Card
offering an APR of between 13.24% and 24.24%
depending on the applicant’s credit score, you
don’t necessarily need a high one to obtain the
Apple Card. The low end of that range is also
beneath the national average APR of 17.80%,
making the Apple Card a solid offering if your
credit score is good.
THE APPLE CARD IS NOW
BEING ROLLED OUT
For a while, it wasn’t obvious exactly when
the Apple Card would finally become publicly
available. The original announcement specified
only the summer, with the U.S. the only intended
market definitively announced for the card.
However, in late July, Bloomberg reported
that Apple and Goldman Sachs aimed to
launch the Apple Card in early August, while
Apple CEO Tim Cook later mentioned August
as the big month during the company’s latest
quarterly earnings call.