iPhone 15: You would not have fintech without it

Apple is about to be transformed into a fintech company in 2022, but a decade and a half since its launch, it is worth noting that you would not have digitalization of finance without the most successful product.

Image source: Pexels / Caleb Oquendo

Think exactly 15 years back. June 29, 2007. What did you do?

No, I do not remember either.

If you were a superior early user of technology, you may have been queuing up to buy – personally, of course – Apple’s latest product to hit the shelves. It was called the iPhone. You may have heard of it, you may even own one.

Chances are high that over the past decade and a half, your financial life has increasingly shifted to your iPhone (or similarly inspired smartphone) and an ever-increasing number of smart fintech apps.

The financial crisis of 2008 and the aftermath of tighter regulation, a venture capital boom, cloud computing and “software that eats the world” have also played their very important roles, of course, in fintech history. But you can not underestimate the impact of the iPhone on our financial lives.

To be an iPhone user is to be in a global club with around one billion members today. While 1.39 million original iPhone devices were sold in 2007, Apple moved 240 million units last year.

“The release of the iPhone sparked a revolution in our everyday lives, with smartphones becoming the home computer in our pockets – indispensable to millions of people around the world,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

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The App Store, which followed a year after the launch of the iPhone, was where things got really interesting for the digitalization of finance. Today, there are approximately 2.22 million apps available for iOS, and a large and ever-increasing number are related to your finances.

“The app store has become an engine of growth for ingenious software applications worldwide, and continues to generate lucrative 30 percent revenue for developers who earn more than $ 1 million through the app store on an annual basis,” said Streeter.

Economically focused apps have been one of the largest areas of development for the past 15 years, especially the last five years, and have given rise to countless digital challengers including neo-banks, robo-advisors and stock trading apps.

“There has been a wave of interest in investment apps during the pandemic, as locked consumers turned to trading as a new past, to invest savings that are being built and to try to take advantage of stock market volatility,” Streeter said.

By 2021, there were 230 billion new app downloads globally. 5.9 billion of these were financial apps, according to data.ai, formerly App Annie.

Since its launch, Apple’s share price has risen by about 100 times, and of the company’s annual revenue still comes over half of the net revenue from the iPhone with the company’s market value rising to around $ 2.2 billion. In about the same period, around $ 700 billion has flowed into fintech startups from venture capitalists.

It now appears that Apple is taking full advantage of its explosive growth and networking effects by launching an ointment of products aimed directly at the fintech market.

This includes in early June the launch of the competitor to BNPL players such as Affirm and Klarna called Apple Pay Later.

In addition, the company is soon set to launch an update for iPhone users to let it compete with the likes of Square by turning the phone into a peer-to-peer payment terminal. Users will be able to pay each other directly by pressing their iPhones together.

The company also raised its eyebrows with a high-profile acquisition of a British fintech company Credit Kudos for $ 150 million in March this year.

Apple’s fintech ambitions have been quite clear in 2022 after years of speculation as to whether it will appear to compete significantly in financial services. After taking three floors of London’s latest skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate later in 2021, a move that greatly expands its presence in City, the UK’s most important financial district, Apple may be hatching even greater fintech ambitions.