It is interesting that there is no direct deposit requirement for this account. Most traditional (Truist, BofA) and competitor banks (Sofi) offer incentives to encourage direct deposit for the end users. I wonder what other strategies Apple will be using to drive deposits in lieu of this.

It is also in Apple's best interest to drive deposits, as most of these agreements end up with the bank (GS) and the provider (Apple) splitting the interest earned. Even if they are currently passing most of the interest to the customer for now, they will want to build up deposits as high as possible so they can lower rates in the future and print money.