[axg11]

This is great news for expansion of Apple's financing/credit/card services to the UK. On the downside, does this mean it's incredible hard for Apple to scale these services to all the countries they operate in? I can't imagine they can acquire a similar company for every market.

[maxfurman]

They have essentially unlimited cash. They certainly could acquire a small bank(ing startup) in every major market if they wanted to.

[physicsguy]

Each market is different; even when UK was in the EU it wasn't like you could for e.g. apply for a credit card from Bulgaria - the supervision responsibilities for UK customers fell onto the UK based Financial Conduct Authority. If you try and purchase an Apple item on credit in the UK, the loans are provided by Barclays even.

[sschueller]

Don't all these new online banks (Wise, Revolut, etc) get UK bank license and then operate in the entire EU (although UK is no longer in the EU)?

[fumblebee]

As another commenter mentioned, for the EU many fintechs will opt to get a banking license in Lithuania.

For example, Revolut is a bank in the EU via a Lithuanian banking license, but only an "e-money institution" in the UK (though the application to become a British bank -- and for that matter, an American bank, and other jurisdictions -- is in progress).

Monzo is a UK bank, but opted to cancel their US banking application, and I don't believe is an EU bank either (someone please fact check me here!)

[alibarber]

I don’t know of any that will extend credit across the whole EU.

The closest service I have gotten to this was (also not exactly an EU company) American Express - but that was still two different legal entities.

[rgallagher27]

A lot of Fintechs get their banking license in Lithuania now for the EU