Apple Card Family Allows Family Members To Build Credit, Share Credit Lines
A couple of years ago, Apple stepped into the realm of financial services by introducing the Apple Card. While we weren't necessarily expecting the Apple Card to make an appearance at today's Spring Loaded event, Apple CEO Tim Cook actually opened the show by making an announcement about the credit card. Today, Apple revealed a new feature called Apple Card Family, which will allow spouses and partners to not only share Apple Cards, but also to build credit history together.
While Cook only touched briefly on Apple Card Family, he did say that it will allow anyone aged 18 or older in your family to use the Apple Card. As Apple describes it in a press release today, it allows multiple people to essentially "co-own" an Apple Card, merging credit lines and allowing members of them to build credit history with the Card.
In his announcement today, Cook said that there's a lack of fairness in the way credit scores and history are established when multiple people share one credit card. Apple Card Family aims to solve that problem by allowing Apple Card customers to add up to five people to their Apple Card accounts. Anyone in a Family Sharing Group aged 13 and up can join an Apple Card Family, while only those who are 18 or older can sign on as co-owners.
Co-owners will "build credit history together, get the flexibility of a combined limit, provide transparency into each other's spending, share the responsibility of making payments, and deliver the convenience of a single monthly bill to pay." Apple also says that all payment history, whether it's positive or negative, will be reported to credit bureaus for all co-owners, and all co-owners and participants will receive Daily Cash for their card purchases.
Apple even said that existing Apple Card owners can merge their Apple Card accounts to get a higher shared credit limit and keep the lower APR of the two accounts. Apple says that Apple Card Family will be launching in the US in May, so we'll look forward to more information about it in the near future.