Apple and Goldman Sachs: A timeline of the messy partnership that will soon fall

https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/26/apple-card-goldman-sachs-deal-ending-report/

by ksec • 2 years ago

32 55 2 years ago

NetOpWibby• 2 years ago

Their deal is active till 2029. It’ll be interesting to see what Sachs does. I think AMEX is a better fit for Apple though.

I was surprised to hear that Apple is trying to do finance things in house but in hindsight, that makes sense. This is Apple, after all.

dartos2• 2 years ago

They are the poster child for vertical integration.

And I mean they have the capital. It’d be funny if Apple became a bank before X.

dmoy2• 2 years ago

Becoming a bank brings a whole stack of regulations that most companies would rather avoid like the plague.

It's not glass-stegall level of forced separation anymore, but it's still more onerous than is probably worth it for Apple.

But it's possible. You do see it sometimes, e.g. car companies (also worth noting though, most of those have been spun off).

hardwaresofton5• 2 years ago

It's up to GS to find a replacement[0].

I think Apple was quite gracious in letting them out (though depending on what news outlet you read the story is spun a couple different ways), but I'm very surprised since GS is generally known (IIRC) as shrewd deal makers. The allure of allying with Apple (and seeming innovative?) was just too strong, I guess -- they did a deal that was bad for them.

As a holder of an Apple card, it's virtually only upside. I'm excited to find out who else is going to try and ride the coat tails of the #1/#2 company in the world and the benefits they'll offer to Apple customers.

Worst case I lose a credit card -- no biggie. Upside, I continue to have access to the credit and maybe an even more prestigious banking institution (AMEX???).

I really don't think that Apple would go ahead and buy up some local bank charters and build their own bank -- only so much antitrust attention a given company wants to invite! But if they did, I'd be excited to see what they'd build -- I bet it would be quite favorable for Apple customers.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/goldman-sachs-faces...

ghaff5• 2 years ago

For me, pretty much the only upside of the Apple credit card is an incremental discount on a free credit card for occasional expensive product purchases. Otherwise I'd probably just as soon not have the additional credit card as it doesn't really make sense for me to use it for anything else.

dmoy2• 2 years ago

I'm very surprised since GS is generally known (IIRC) as shrewd deal makers. The allure of allying with Apple (and seeming innovative?) was just too strong, I guess -- they did a deal that was bad for them.

Some of it may just be that GS doesn't really know wtf it's doing in the consumer side of finances. See e.g. their $billions of losses on their consumer banking product Macrus, for years and years.

ksec• 2 years ago

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.

delfinom• 2 years ago

That's the thing, Apple ended up with Goldman because all the usual credit card companies refused to work on Apple's terms. Apple went above and beyond a normal CC partnership by demanding terms on card issuance and card billing that typically is important in credit card servicing and risks.

AMEX is probably not in any rush to take losses themselves like Goldman ended up doing. Not to mention Goldman has a big customer service issue because Apple's insistence that everyone is billed at the 1st of the month means customer service is flooded the first week and sitting idle the next 3 weeks.

supertrope• 2 years ago

Apple's insistence that everyone is billed at the 1st of the month means customer service is flooded the first week and sitting idle the next 3 weeks.

This seems counter productive. While simplicity of due dates on the first of the month is nice waiting on hold sucks. It’s similar to businesses that have a big marketing and discount push centered on a single day and overwhelm their sales funnel capacity.

Beijinger2• 2 years ago

Credit Card. I lost my CC account. Can somebody suggest a good credit card?

This looks pretty decent: https://www.fidelityrewards.com/credit/welcome.do?exp=&lang=...

Someone wrote that 1.5% gets invested in your Fidelity account.

Cash back would be nice. No exchange fees. Ability to create virtual CC. And strong fraud protection. I dont use Apple products, so I guess no Apple CC for me.

ghaff5• 2 years ago

Fidelity is quite good. They fairly recently added no foreign exchange fees. No virtual credit cards AFAIK. Can't speak to fees if you don't pay your account in full every month. (Though any of the premium cards are pretty bad if you don't.)

havaloc• 2 years ago

Fidelity now offers 2% on that card: https://www.fidelity.com/spend-save/visa-signature-card

It's pretty good, no FTF. The credit cards reddit is a font of information too.

hartator• 2 years ago

Sounds like a scam.

Beijinger2• 2 years ago

Yes, sure. Fidelity is known for scams...

fullshark• 2 years ago

https://www.nerdwallet.com/

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

It would be logical step for Apple to set up its own Financial Services company that would issue CCs itself (using the Visa/MC network). Especially if Apple eventually gets into larger ticket items that are usually purchased on credit, like cars.

crowcroft3• 2 years ago

The thing that worries me about this, is it’s a slippery slope to becoming the next GE.

I believe the folks at Apple are smart enough to know how to manage that for now, but you’re always one Immelt away from insolvency when you play that game.

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

the big difference is that Apple has shown over decades that it can/will a very tight focus on a small number of core products, with everything else being in support of that (which Financing would be). It's not like GE making both fridges and nuclear power plants.

CharlesW• 2 years ago

The thing that worries me about this, is it’s a slippery slope to becoming the next GE.

Sony seems to be doing okay, and their Sony Financial Holdings offers online banking services through Sony Bank, life insurance through Sony Life, and insurance through Sony Assurance (albeit only in Japan).

pxeboot• 2 years ago

It would be logical step for Apple to set up its own Financial Services company

Are they allowed to do this in the US? I remember Walmart wanting to get into financial services, but ended up having to partner with an existing bank instead. Presumably for regulatory reasons.

jasode• 2 years ago

It would be logical step for Apple to set up its own Financial Services company that would issue CCs itself

Why would that be a "logical" step? Goldman Sachs has already lost billions partially because Apple insisted on lower credit standards for applicants' approvals which resulted in a lower quality portfolio of credit-card holders that don't make their payments on time.

In a round about way, Apple (inadvertently) got a bunch of GS money to buy its expensive Apple products and the later issue of creditcard holders getting behind on their debt repayments is GS's problem instead of Apple's.

If Apple started a bank business to underwrite its own credit-card, what do they gain by taking on that extra financial risk? I suppose Apple could theoretically "gain" interest payments but Apple was the one pushing for less credit-worthy applicants which negates the point of getting interest money as profits. GS's losses of $1 to $3 billion already proved that model doesn't work.

It actually seems more logical for Apple to shop the Apple-branded creditcard to other potential backers such as Citi or Chase.

Sure, previous giant companies like General Electric started GE Captial, Sears started, Discover card, Toyota has Toyota Motor Credit... but that doesn't mean Apple wants to get into the bank business.

saiya-jin• 2 years ago

Now who the heck from banking sector would ever want to do anything with Apple after this? No deal will be too sweet to ignore this hard lesson.

That's a colossal clusterfuck in banking on GS side (not that they are that rare in banking generally, but they tend to learn quickly).

Kluggy• 2 years ago

Apple insisted on lower credit standards for applicants' approvals which resulted in a lower quality portfolio of credit-card holders that don't make their payments on time.

I thought they only made money when people didn't pay on time and thus have to pay interest payments?

ChrisMarshallNY2• 2 years ago

I wouldn't be particularly thrilled to have it switched to Amex, because a number of merchants won't accept Amex, but I am tired of not being able to use my Apple Card at Costco. Amex would be better, there.

I don't remember the details, but the reason they picked MasterCard, was because of some technical infrastructure that MC provides.

Aloha2• 2 years ago

Does Costco even take Amex anymore?

Maybe they still do in Canada?

ChrisMarshallNY2• 2 years ago

Maybe they don’t. I haven’t had an Amex card in over 20 years.

mh8h• 2 years ago

Costco takes only MasterCard in Canada.

tekeous• 2 years ago

They don’t since the Costco card changed to Visa

raincom• 2 years ago

Maybe, Apple and Goldman Sachs negotiated a better deal with Mastercard esp interchange fees. For instance, Costco pays Visa 0.4% interchange fees for accepting Visa cards exclusively at Costco.

mlrtime• 2 years ago

It's all about fee negotiations, nothing else.

For Costco, they wanted lower fees. Amex said no. Now they only accept VISA (in the US).

bombcar• 2 years ago

Costco switched to Visa, they pay them quite a few millions to be the Costco Card.

So maybe Costco+Apple could be their own bank and card.

bmitc• 2 years ago

Costco does not accept American Express, which is annoying since it prevents use of the Blue Cash Preferred card.

divbzero• 2 years ago

Costco’s credit card partners change from time to time based on fee negotiations:

Costco in the US switched from American Express to Citi/Visa in 2016.

Costco in Canada switched from Capital One/Mastercard to CIBC/Mastercard in 2022.

eatbitseveryday• 2 years ago

Switching to AMEX will make the card less usable internationally, too.

efitz• 2 years ago

I’m an Apple Card user and love it.

That said, I have no idea how GS convinced itself to sign the contract. For that matter, I have my doubts about the ethics of the people on the Apple side even proposing such terms as the ability to add more categories of stuff that can be bought at 0% interest- that looks like just a transfer of money from GS to Apple.

fnordpiglet• 2 years ago

A little history, the Apple Card almost didn’t successfully launch. The management associated with it brought in a heavy tech industry contingent to launch Apple Card eschewing all help from the internal bank tech and security teams. As launch approached an audit found horrendously weak security top to bottom, including basic things like credentials checked into the code base, lack of encryption throughout, etc. All this at an extraordinary cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Apple was furious since it was about three months from launch and Goldman had proved it was not up to the level technically - when in fact they had hired everyone fresh. So, they suddenly turned to the internal tech and security groups which dropped everything for that summer and sat in war rooms fixing bugs and security flaws so egregious people would get together after work and laugh about the hubris.

The galling thing was the flagrant condescending attitude they treated the internal staff from the beginning. The internal staff had been there offering help day zero and were treated like oldster idiots. Now, the oldster idiots were fixing the hipster techbro mess, cancelling summer plans to clean up a mess they not only didn’t create but had tried to avoid. After a Herculean effort with two weeks to spare the last of the P1 security issues were closed out and Apple Card was ready to launch.

Apple Card was technically a success. It’s probably the most advanced best integrated card platform out there. The business side was a mess, as evinced by their tech industry exclusive hiring and creating the us and them culture.

Apple and Goldman Sachs: A timeline of the messy partnership that will soon fall

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