A top Apple executive reveals the company thinks crypto has 'interesting long-term potential'
- Vice president of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey told CNN Business during a private event in San Francisco that Apple is "watching cryptocurrency," adding the company thinks "it has interesting long-term potential."
- The comments follow Apple's latest push into consumer finance products, with its Apple Card credit card releasing in August in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard.
- Apple's potential move into digital coins would serve as "a major shot in the arm for crypto," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Business.
- Watch Apple trade live here.
An Apple executive said the tech giant is keeping an eye on cryptocurrencies during a private event in San Francisco, saying digital coins have "interesting long-term potential."
"We're watching cryptocurrency. We think it's interesting," vice president of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey told CNN at the event. "We think it has interesting long-term potential."
She addressed the new asset class as part of a talk on the future of digital payments and the company's push into the sector.
Bailey's comments follow the August release of the Apple Card, a credit card made in collaboration with Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. The card served as the first major expansion of Apple's consumer finance products since Apple Pay launched in October 2014.
Apple's potential move into digital coins would serve as "a major shot in the arm for crypto," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Business. He added that the interest in crypto "could make sense given its sights on further monetizing its consumers."
The introduction of finance products would fall in line with Apple's continued push into service revenue growth. Its Services business now contribute to more than one-fifth of the company's quarterly income, and upcoming offerings like Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade could further boost its earnings.
Apple traded at $212.30 as of 12:40 p.m. ET Thursday, up about 35% year-to-date.
Other tech companies have announced plans to expand into digital coins in the near future, with Facebook's "Libra" coin scheduled for a 2020 launch. The product drew scrutiny earlier in the summer as regulators questioned the social network's security and antitrust positioning as a crypto provider.
Payment processing company Square released its own bitcoin trading service through its Square Cash app in January 2018 after a short preview phase. CEO Jack Dorsey - who also serves as Twitter's chief executive - tweeted in March the company was looking to hire crypto engineers to build out "the bitcoin/crypto ecosystem," signalling Square will continue to push into the digital coin space.
Now read more markets coverage from Markets Insider and Business Insider:
