Financial Services Association, March 28 (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) After US stocks opened on Wednesday, the stock price of Robinhood, a well-known internet brokerage firm, once rose nearly 5%. According to the news, Robinhood, which once led the “zero commission” wave of US stock transactions, has officially entered the US credit card market and launched a credit card that will please Apple Card users.

(Source: Robinhood official website)

The market also anticipated that Robinhood would go beyond this step. In June of last year, the listed company spent 95 million US dollars to acquire credit card startup X1. Obviously, today's product is the product of this acquisition. At the same time, after the news that Apple and Goldman Sachs's Apple Card collaboration “may break up” came out, Robinhood's launch of a credit card with more generous benefits was undoubtedly to seize this opportunity.

As of January of this year, the number of Apple Card cardholders exceeded 12 million. Currently, Robinhood's credit card is only open for reservation applications, and the listing date has not yet been confirmed.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev also predicted that many users would further open investment accounts with Robinhood by using this credit card.

More generous in terms of benchmarking Apple

As a product that matches the Apple Card, Robinhood, the “catfish of the industry,” will clearly not lose to Apple and Goldman Sachs in terms of equity.

The core selling point of the Robinhood Credit Card is that it provides 3% cash back on all types of purchases and 5% back on travel expenses spent on the Robinhood travel platform. In a horizontal comparison, the Apple Card only provides 3% rebate for purchases using Apple Pay at Apple Stores and specific merchants; in more common spending scenarios, the cashback ratio is only 2%.

Undoubtedly, as an internet brokerage credit card, the cashback here can of course also be transferred to a brokerage account to trade stocks.

At the same time, in terms of high-yield savings account benefits, Apple and Goldman Sachs currently give users an annualized yield of 4.5%, while Robinhood, which invests in its main business, can currently give 5% annualized.

Of course, as a latecomer to “crossing the river with Apple,” Robinhood also provided a solution to the problem of losing money in the Apple Card business: there is no annual fee for this credit card, but the prerequisite for opening a card is that users must subscribe to Robinhood's gold membership service.

The service currently costs $5 per month, or $50 per year. In addition to being able to open a Robinhood credit card and high-yield savings account, this member also has benefits such as preferential financing rates, NASDAQ market data, and industry research reports.

Internet genes injected into consumer finance business

In addition to functions directly compatible with Apple, Robinhood also leverages the strengths of an internet company in the product design of the credit card itself.

According to Robinhood, this physical credit card does not have a card number, so if the card is lost or stolen, users don't need to change all of the card information.

At the same time, users can create and manage a series of virtual credit card numbers. In the presentation given by the company, users can set up separate virtual credit cards for free trial video subscription services, takeout, gift cards, etc., and set conditions such as a limited number of uses and expiration time.

Deepak Rao, co-founder of X1 and general manager of Robinhood Money, explained that in the past, credit card users needed to update a lot of credit card information for online subscriptions after exchanging cards, but now the credit card number is completely managed through the app.

Incidentally, Robinhood has also arranged a typical operation and promotion campaign for this new business — the first 5,000 users who recommend 10 new customers to join the Gold membership can get a credit card containing “10 carat solid gold”, which is worth about $1,100.