I think the argument is a bit more vague than that, quote the article:

"And this is why Tim Cook is willing to go to the mattresses with the US department of justice over iOS security: if nobody trusts their iPhone, nobody will be willing to trust the next-generation Apple Bank [...]"

All the author is talking about is a general perception of trust, not any actual backdoor.

He also mentions the phone as a tool for payment:

> I'm going to assume you know what Apple Pay is: you use your iPhone, iPad, or Watch as a trusted, authenticated identity token in a shop to pay for stuff. It ties into your bank account and basically your phone swallows your debit and credit card.

I thought that was fairly explicit. If the phone (or watch...) is going to be the primary tool of payment than its security is paramount. Apple wants at least the same level of protection against tampering as the chip inside a modern credit card.

Note that there is already a bank called Apple Bank [0] and a software product called iBank [1]. So what are they going to name their hypothetical Apple-computer-financial-institution?

[0] https://www.applebank.com/ [1] http://www.ibank.com/

There was a Cisco IPhone[1] before there was an Apple iPhone, Apple somehow made it work[2]. Apple Computers had also signed an agreement[3] with (the Beatles') Apple Corp in the 80's not to enter the music business, but they did[4] and also made it work[5] after breaching the agreement. Having piles of money can solve a lot of disagreements

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_iPhone

2. http://www.networkworld.com/article/2295551/network-security...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#1...

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#2...

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#2...

Well, they could just buy applebank and ibank. There's quite a bit you can do with $0.1 trillion dollars.

I am pretty sure Apple has enough pocket change to buy both of them with their morning coffee.

They could just tell them to change their names, "It's not that big a deal."