Core competencies, like iTunes?
What’s selling music got to do with making computers?
Believe me, companies as big as Apple and Microsoft are nearly operating as banks as we speak.
Handling cash is what they do. It’s a massive part of what they do. I’m shocked they haven’t tried becoming their own bank a long time ago.
Google’s making cars now. Drones.
There has to be real showstoppers as to why they don’t want to be a bank, but it isn’t because it isn’t a core competency. It very much is. MSFT made almost $100M in currency arbitrage in 2013. That’s a rounding error in their revenue report, but it’s still a ton of cash. Apple’s pulling in even more than that.
No cards to issue. No fees to third party banks. No encryption or security issues. AppleBank would be clean.
Nice list of non-sequiturs there.
iTunes is pretty straightforward to operate, being little more than a giant file server. Lots of people hate it. Apple created it just to streamline music player sales and to draw/keep people in the iOS ecosystem. You can still get music from many other sources. Your analogy backfires because piracy is rampant, and Apple had to cut some awfully pricy deals with studios to tolerate it (note it was NOT solved by buying a music publisher).
Google doesn’t make cars beyond a few prototypes to explore the possibilities of self-driving. They didn’t buy a cell phone manufacturer to promote Android. You can’t buy a Google Drone.
There’s a big difference between being a combination manufacturer and specialized retailer, vs taking on banking outright. Yeah, there’s big money in a Apple Pay Bank, but there’s much bigger - and easier - money in letting a whole lotta other banks pay for your service and handle the extensive details of customer relations & high-risk investing. Phillips doesn’t manufacture CDs or own recording studios & publishers, they just get a little fraction of every single CD out there - and it’s serving them very well without the headaches.
Stick to your core competencies. Reach out too far, you die. Remember, Apple doesn’t even do their own manufacturing - they contract out to other manufacturers. Why would they buy/be a bank when they don’t even make their own products?