AMEX isn't widely accepted in most part of the world. And given what they did and their demand with Goldman I doubt any other banks wants to work with them. It never made sense in the first place and the only reason why Goldman took the bait was because Goldman had zero Consumer Banking sector market share.

So I am not surprised to hear that Apple is trying to do finance things in house. But with all the regulation burden again it is just another step in the wrong strategy, all in order to pursuit growth of revenue over everything.