Apple Savings account

[Bossman]

The Apple Savings account along with Apple Pay seemed like a great idea. For instance, use Apple Pay to get 10% back on groceries (up to $500) and have the money automatically deposited to your new Apple savings account which pays 4.15%. What can go wrong?

I could not connect my joint Fidelity account to the Apple savings and could not add any beneficiaries online. No problem, call Goldman Sachs support and take care of the two issues. After being on hold for more than an hour, I decided to try and resolve the problem via chat.

I started a chat session and was able to get a support person within about 15 minutes. The chat started fine, until the person started calling me by the wrong name (John). The support was so confusing, awkward and just outrageously bad that I decided the savings account was not worth the aggravation.

Apple Savings may be a great idea, but it is not ready for prime time, so I closed my savings account to avoid having to change my name to John.

 

[braumeister]

I could not connect my joint Fidelity account to the Apple savings ...
so I closed my savings account to avoid having to change my name to John.

Sorry to hear that, Throckmorton.

It never occurred to me to link a brokerage account, but I had no trouble linking my Fidelity CMA to Apple Savings. So far it has worked flawlessly for me.

 

[Bossman]

Apple Pay

To be 100% accurate, I tried to link a joint Fidelity CMA. I suspect that the "joint" in CMA, may of been the problem.

 

[braumeister]

To be 100% accurate, I tried to link a joint Fidelity CMA. I suspect that the "joint" in CMA, may of been the problem.

No idea, but mine is also joint.

 

[bloom2708]

I have my Apple Savings account open.

I have not been able to "Verify" my bank accounts yet as the phone queue is hours long. Another fail by Goldman Sachs.

Think of the millions of Apple users. All opening their Apple Savings. Many have to manually call in in to verify their bank account. That requires GS support manually calling your bank. I did talk to someone two times, but once was disconnected. The next time they transferred me a second time and that call wait was infinity.

If you use Apple Pay/Apple Card your 3% daily cash is deposited directly into your Apple Savings upon clearing. That is nice as you bypass rewards altogether.

1% only for swipe card transactions which is not great. 2% would be good for swipe transactions.

Eventually I will get my bank accounts verified. My local bank is paying .3% on savings rates. I wonder why deposits flow out of traditional banks. Hmmm. Can't think of a reason except 4.15% is 13.83 times more than .3%.

Local banks don't even want your money. But they also don't want you to take it out.

 

[braumeister]

Think of the millions of Apple users. All opening their Apple Savings. Every one has to manually call in in to verify their bank account. That requires GS support manually calling your bank.

Not necessary to call at all for me. I did mine right from my iPhone in the Wallet app, and it was completed in seconds.

 

[COcheesehead]

One of the greatest things about the Apple Card/account is how easy it is to do everything from your digital wallet.

 

[bloom2708]

Not necessary to call at all for me. I did mine right from my iPhone in the Wallet app, and it was completed in seconds.

Not sure what is triggering the "Verification required" for many users. Certain banks, joint accounts?

I previously linked my bank account to Apple Cash. That works fine. I can pay my Apple Card bill with the same bank account. Like I said, vintage Goldman Sachs. Make it harder than it should be.

It is the first menu item when you pick Apple Savings when you call in, so it must be affecting a non-zero amount of people. Plus the wait times are hours not minutes. But, maybe they have 4 people verifying bank accounts.

 

[steelyman]

I had a little bit of a challenge setting up my Apple Cash and Savings properly so that I could move money between the two but a chat with a rep cleared it up this morning. He took over the screen to help point out what I needed to do and where.

I’m not one of those people who automatically think “anything Apple is next to God” but in this case it was well and efficiently done.

 

[audreyh1]

We linked one of our joint Fidelity Brokerage accounts to Apple Card Savings no problem. We used the old fashioned two deposits method and it worked just fine.

At the time we got a message that either of us could access the account. Didn’t prevent setup.

No calling in, nada. It was a quick setup from the Apple wallet and we then transferred funds from the account we had used in the past to pay the card. We wanted a Fidelity link in addition because we’ll probably transfer a larger amount now.

 

[donheff]

I haven't paid any attention to this new thing. Do you have to get an Apple credit card to open one? Its a PITA to unfreeze three accounts.

 

[COcheesehead]

I haven't paid any attention to this new thing. Do you have to get an Apple credit card to open one? Its a PITA to unfreeze three accounts.

More info here.

https://apply.applecard.apple/?cid=..._adid=655479387074&utm_tgtid=kwd-647220239413

 

[braumeister]

Not necessary to call at all for me. I did mine right from my iPhone in the Wallet app, and it was completed in seconds.

Thinking about it some more, I believe it was so simple for me because my FIDO CMA was already set up to autopay my Apple Card. So linking it to the savings account was a no-brainer.

 

[jebmke]

I haven't paid any attention to this new thing. Do you have to get an Apple credit card to open one? Its a PITA to unfreeze three accounts.

yeah; don't need another card and MM funds are beating the banks anyway.

 

[jazz4cash]

I didn’t see the details. It sounds like the enhanced interest rate is only on cashback earned from using the apple credit card if you choose to deposit the reward? The account is run by Goldman Sachs (Marcus) which pays 3.9% for online savings so the Apple deal is .25% better. I think I’m better sticking with my Fidelity 2% reward that gets auto deposited monthly into a ~4% MM account.

 

[Alex The Great]

I use Apple Pay with Citi Custom Cash credit card with 5% cash back on category I use the most (typically groceries) and transfer it into Wealthfront high yield savings which currently pay 4.55%. Not sure what would be the reason to use Apple Savings account.

 

[mpeirce]

I didn’t see the details. It sounds like the enhanced interest rate is only on cashback earned from using the apple credit card if you choose to deposit the reward?

No, you can transfer money into and out of the saving account from elsewhere.

I have an account already hooked up to pay the Apple credit card. I can transfer money from that account directly into the savings account. On the Apple Savings account screen in wallet, you press Add Money, pick an amount, then it asked for confirmation. Simple and easy. And the same for withdrawals.

I keep the easy majority of our cash in Vanguard Federal MM since it’s paying 4.89% (today). But I do let the rewards money accumulating from Apple purchases in the Apple saving account.

 

[bloom2708]

The 4.15% is not the best rate out there. I was able to get my bank account verified through a longish wait.

Why would someone use Apple Savings? Decent rate, no outside setup for an Apple iPhone user. If someone used the Apple Card as their primary card, this all integrates quite easily.

4.55 or 4.89 are better rates. I admit that I have most of our cash in the Federal MM at Vanguard. I am not going to use Wealthfront, so that isn't an option. I mostly set it up so the Apple Daily cash goes into the Apple Savings.

There may come a time when FDIC insured is preferred over Non-FDIC MM type accounts. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

I don't see the Fed dropping rates this time unless some real bad things happen. They will not want inflation igniting again even though it isn't back to where they want it.

 

[audreyh1]

We just opened one because DH already has the Apple Credit Card which he uses for Apple purchases, and it’s a convenient place to park cash to pay the card as wel occasionally have large purchases. I’m expecting to earn the interest on any cash deposited into that account including cash transferred into the account from elsewhere.