How to verify your external bank account for Apple Savings transfers

If you've set up an Apple Savings account and can't transfer money directly to and from it with your primary bank, it can be an instantly frustrating experience. Thankfully, there's an easy, official fix and a temporary workaround.

Apple has an extra step of protection for your attached external bank account when interacting with your Apple Savings. It must be verified as belonging to you, personally, before direct transactions occur.

Some users might not have to do anything at all. The bank account they use to pay off the Apple Card or charge Apple Cash might automatically be verified, thanks to the bank's backend.

However, some banks won't verify your identity automatically. Users with this problem won't know about it until they attempt to withdraw or add money directly to Apple Savings from within Apple Wallet.

An error will appear saying to contact support. Clicking the link just takes the user to an iMessage Business Chat with Apple.

The fix: call Apple

To verify your external bank account is yours requires a phone call to Apple Card support. The support representative will get ahold of your bank and verify some details to enable direct transfers.

Call: (1-877-255-5923)

The entire process took us about fifteen minutes, but the results depend on how long your hold with Apple/Goldman is and how long that representative is on hold with your bank.

Once both parties are on the line, verifying the needed info takes about five minutes.

My bank representative asked for my social security or member number and name to verify my identity. After I permitted the two parties to exchange info, they verified my checking, routing number, home address, and account age.

That's it. Simply conclude the call, and within a few minutes, direct transfers are possible from your external bank account to and from Apple Savings.

A temporary workaround

While verifying an external bank account doesn't take much time, it will require a dedicated block to get it done. So, until you can sit on hold for fifteen minutes or more, there's a workaround to managing Apple Savings.

Just transfer money to Apple Cash first with your debit card, then send that money to Apple Savings. Or, to withdraw, send the money from Apple Savings to Apple Cash, then to the attached bank account.

It seems Apple wants to prevent direct withdrawal from a savings account to an unverified account in case of fraud. If someone was to gain access to your iPhone, they could theoretically add a bank account and transfer out all the savings with a click without this protection.

This doesn't stop a malicious user from moving the money to Apple Cash and sending it up to $10,000 per week via iMessage— an unlikely scenario, but worth keeping in mind.

Apple Savings can hold up to $250,000 and earn 4.15% APY. It is only available in the United States for existing Apple Card holders.