It seems that the credit card was designed to tie into Apple's existing payments systems to both reduce processing fees that Apple pays and to be sticky. The c

It seems that the credit card was designed to tie into Apple's existing payments systems to both reduce processing fees that Apple pays and to be sticky. The card pays cash back daily as dollars that are immediately available for use with Apple Pay. Apple can then prompt you to pay for Apps, Apple Music, and Apple hardware using these funds. That makes the stuff you buy from Apple feel "free" (you're paying for it with magic cash-back dollars). It also means that processing your payment just requires changing a number in an Apple database, not routing money through the credit card processing network. I'm sure I've gotten some of the details wrong. The top comment here goes into a lot more (somewhat speculative) detail: https://www.quora.com/What-is-Apple-Card-the-new-credit-card-from-Apple-and-why-is-it-important https://www.quora.com/What-is-Apple-Card-the-new-credit-card...