The Apple Card is a great credit card for people that aren't optimizing points for travel (most regular people).
The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties. The cash back is super easy to use and visible (and the extra percentage on Apple purchases is a nice bonus).
I have some cards I use for perks (Amex Plat/Gold, United Club, used to have Chase Sapphire Reserve) but I used the Apple Card as my sole card for a while and I kind of miss the simplicity of it. With Amex I feel like I'm fighting against an Army of Amex employees trying to make it as hard as possible for me to use the card's perks where as with Apple I feel like they're genuinely trying to make the software usable for me, the incentives are more aligned.
Every time I have to use Amex's site to 'enable' a perk and then read the fine print to make sure I actually get the benefit it makes me angry at some invisible product manager that hates customers.
Yeah, I just can't spend my time on that stuff. I got a card that just gives me 2% on everything and I'm calling it a day. no fee.
Airport lounges sound cool, my friends sometimes get a deal on travel/hotel. But they also can't use points in some situations for weird reasons. Another uses a spreadsheet to optimize his poins. I just can't devote that kind of time to that stuff.
The points can really be worth it though. In 2 years, over 3 cards (between my wife and I), I've racked up nearly 400,000 Aeroplan miles, which is valued somewhere around $8,400 (2.1c per mile). And this is regular spending, and pretty basic cards (AMEX Cobalt and TD Infinite). These aren't the $700+/year cards, all are $1xx/year.
I mostly fall into the 'set it and forget it' group. But, if you travel it can pay to add another card. Also, there's a middle ground between do nothing and track on a spreadsheet. It's pretty easy to have an Apple Card for 3% Apple things, Amazon card for 5% at Amazon, and then something like Venture X (or other travel friendly card) for everything else. One of nice things about the Venture cards is you simply book travel however you want then apply points to the purchase after the fact - no blackouts.
And since you mention lounges - if you travel 3+/year, lounges and TSA Pre/Global Entry really lower the frustration of travel.
It really is quite nice. If it weren’t for my SoFi credit card giving a flat 2% back on everything (which can be routed into a 4.5% savings account), my Apple Card would be my primary card. As it is it primarily gets used for Apple Pay since the cash back is the same in that circumstance as well as for Apple stuff for the 3% back.
Wouldn’t be surprised if between the two Apple will be the one to keep the perks going longest though… my hunch is that SoFi will dial theirs down once they’re done trying to aggressively grow.
Apple still beats SoFi in the UI department though. More bank/card apps should be modeled after the Apple Card page in Wallet.
Amazon card is a good option. 5% cashback on Amazon purchases (and often with "no interest if paid within 12 months" type terms on stuff like TVs. 2% on gas and 1% on everything else. Cashback accrues in practically real time and is useable on 99% of products on Amazon, so it's very normal-person friendly as it doesn't require optimization of habits if you already buy a lot of stuff on the 'zon. Super simple since it just rewards flat dollars, no points or annual thresholds or loyalty programs or...
Also doesn't require the insanely good credit of the Apple card.
Yikes. I know it's just an example, but how often do "normal" people buy TVs?
I gave up videogames because I didn't want to spend so much time in my head like that (I'll still gladly play tabletop games with other people, and even couch-coop videogames if I'm invited too, but I gave away my gaming PC), and I sure don't want to spend time fiddling with credit-card points games. It helps that we're mostly unhooked from "retail therapy" or whatever the term is these days.
What are the costs of cc points games? Who pays in the long run?
I hate points. There's always a catch, a term and condition that excludes your desired flight, or a time limit, or a horrible website, or something stupid.
The best points are called dollars and are accepted everywhere, all the time, for any purchase.
> The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties.
We will see. The Apple Card is using the Mastercard network. Recent article came out which shows MC does their own internal processing of transaction data for their personal gain.
I have requested my data through the GDPR portal — “My Data”. In theory, there should only be data for my other MC card.
I do agree. It’s a nice card for those that don’t care about the “point warfare” (most programs offer 1-3 cents per dollar spent). Side note, GS is very generous with their credit limits. My limit is reaching almost $60K at this point and I maybe use 10% of it.
The one thing I do dislike about the AC is the support. It’s so bad
I'd bet that this is pretty close to 'everyone' at this point. Haven't we been reading stories on HN recently about how airline points are basically worthless these days? I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were essentially true for all travel-related points.
The privacy policy claims that MasterCard and Goldman do not sell or share transaction data from Apple Card. I’d like clarity on how this differs from any other MasterCard but that is what it says.
It is really nice once you give up trying to min/max rewards.
And some of the issues are kind of self inflicted - the "always monthly on the nose" isn't a feature I really need, and I would actually prefer to offset that by a few days, so if they offered that as a feature I'd take advantage of it.
I am very content with my alliant signature visa, as it gives 2.5% on everything, still has an extended-warranty benefit, and has no international transaction fees.
There are a few downsides, specifically (a) no contactless chip in the credit card yet, (b) need to keep $1k on deposit and have at least one monthly deposit of any kind/amount (scheduled ACH for $10) to get the 2.5% rate, otherwise it's 1.5%, (c) minimum redemption $50, and (d) ACH processing is a little slow/awkward, so you probably want to pay a bit ahead of time. And generally the UX is a little rough etc, they are a small credit union and it's not super polished, but it's functional.
But yeah I'm tired of category gimmicks/etc, they are not usually worth it anymore. BOA Signature Visa has 3% on category of choice (online purchases or home improvement being the good ones) but it's only up to $2500 in spend per quarter, and they count the non-choice categories against your total bonus, so using it for gas/groceries costs you from the theoretical maximum of $75 total bonus per quarter. And they charge international transaction fees which completely negate the online purchase bonus for anything denominated in non-USD (at least it's not charging for international transactions in USD anymore). And they really screwed up on a fraud case that took CFPB intervention to fix - it turns out, the price of my dignity is apparently $75 a quarter.
The costco card has 4% on gas, which is good (especially when I had a nearby speedway I could buy beer at), but it doesn't cash out until the next calendar year (so you can wait up to 14 months for points) so I generally don't use that except for the end of the year (I'll wait 3-4 months, I won't wait 14). But I think this is emblematic of the problem - the costco card (and many other store cards) only gives 2% even in the store, so it's worse than the alliant, on top of the onerous cashout process! Even if you have a more typical 2%-on-everything card, the costco card is pretty much strictly worse because of the cashout. I mostly got it for the 2-year extended warranty, that was the value to me, but they dropped that benefit at the start of 2022, so, it's almost useless to me now.
Notionally I could use amex or something and try to make it my primary card I guess, but I'm not a business traveler, and the alliant is just mentally easier. 2.5% on everything if you keep the $1k in the account and set up a recurring monthly $10 ach transfer, done. No international transaction fees, what you see is what you pay (plus or minus actual currency conversion, which is unavoidable). Use it as your primary card and spend $2000 and you'll cross the $50 redemption threshold every month. Is fine.
The Amazon Prime card is also very good, 5% on all amazon purchases is good enough I'll make a special point of it. If you do most of your bigbox purchases there, it adds up quick. They also have very good cash-advance offers, right now it's 4% transfer fee and 2% APY for a year - but the cash advance pays off first, and new purchases continue to accrue interest at the full rate (25% or whatever), so, you want to lock the card while you're doing a cash advance, so you are also foregoing that 5% (really, 2.5% above the alliant) from amazon purchases, but, if you're mature with it, it's great for consolidating other debt or financing things that need to be done in cash.
I'm also an overall satisfied Alliant customer. Definitely the lack of contactless chip is annoying, and I will echo that their UX could use refinement, but otherwise it's a pretty reliable card and the points are simple and easy. Fraud detection is a little hair-trigger I've found, but I have a few backup travel cards so when something unusual gets declined I can use an alternative.
This is completely unsurprising. The way banks make money on consumer credit cards is primarily through interest and fees, which primarily take advantage of people who are not financially literate. They also make intentional dark UX choices to ensure that collecting on fees or interest is much more likely.
Meanwhile, Apple Card had such high eligibility requirements (I got denied the first time I applied and I'm a HENRY tech worker with an 812 credit score) that the vast majority of the customers in the program are exactly the type of people who are high earning and responsible enough with money to pay the card off each month to avoid interest and fees. Apple made it a step further due to the integration into Wallet that allows you to easily track spending and ensure you can trigger payments in a way to avoid interest.
As a consumer, I love Apple Card, because it makes it simple to get base cash back and ensure I never get charged interest. Clearly it's a bad deal for Goldman Sachs, but I don't have any tears to shed for them.
It is mostly older Millenials/Xennials with professional jobs. They earn more than 2x the national median income, but have a net worth that's less than 3x their income or $1M (whichever is larger).
Are the approval rates that harsh? It never seemed that way to me. Anecdote: I applied in 2019 when it first came out, and hadn't had a credit card in several years, and my credit score was, to my knowledge, pretty much shit and non-existent; the only reason I even tried to apply was because I had a good paying job at the time, and it was like 2 button clicks to try it, so I figured "why not, I should probably get one". I got approved for $250/month within 5 minutes and was able to use it via NFC at the store within 5 minutes of that. I was fairly surprised actually.
But you're otherwise spot on. Because I'm an American tech worker, I've never missed a payment the whole time I've had it, or even had to worry about it much. It's been great for my credit score and I've literally paid zero interest on it, ever.
Your premise makes intuitive sense given what we've heard about Apple Card approval rates, but articles I read in the past indicate the problem is in fact high charge-off (failure to pay) rates:
In my experience, giving a company more business (not to mention, straight up cash!) is seldom an FU :)
The above article is kinda slim on why this is bad for GS but the sense that I got from clicking one link down is that the concrete thing is their 'platform' business has not recouped its investment. As in, they paid a bunch of people, paid for a bunch of integrations, etc and aren't generating sufficient offsetting revenue. Given how cards and accounts work, I suspect the incremental margin on a given CUSTOMER is positive. So yes, I think they would be happy to get the merchant fees off of your increased Credit Card spending and to enjoy the spread between your 4.15% and whatever they invest in which presumably pays more.
Hopefully it's invested in some type of insurance company, and in that case the spread is likely 1%. I would think the investment would have to be a guaranteed return.
I don't think it's an FU to them. You can get a much better rate than 4.15% right now, which means they are just using your money to buy those things to the maximum extent possible. Shop around.
If you don't want to deal with some random bank and their crazy password requirements, you can probably buy CDs through your ordinary brokerage account.
Finally, if you want to FU a bank, depositing your money there isn't the best way to do that. Start spreading rumors that Apple Card savings is about to be insolvent and get everyone to withdraw their money. That they hate. Ask Silicon Valley Bank.
> Start spreading rumors that Apple Card savings is about to be insolvent and get everyone to withdraw their money. That they hate. Ask Silicon Valley Bank.
You haven't stated, but seem to imply that the stated rumors would not be founded at the time they start being spread. I'm not a lawyer, but spreading unfounded rumors for any purpose (much less with the intent to cause financial harm) seems unwise.
Disclaimer: left Goldman a couple years ago. My GS holdings are a rounding error in my portfolio.
Goldman sach's other savings account, Marcus by goldman sachs gives you 4.40% right now.
Depending on the deal with apple, the 4.15% through apple could be worse for GS, but it would also be worse for you. (Not to mention, treasuries are over 5% and don't incur state income tax)
Weirdly, their standalone savings offering through Marcus is offering 4.40%. I don't know why the Apple Savings is not competitive. When Apple Savings was first released it was slightly higher than Marcus (for about a month, then Marcus changed to match).
Beating investment bankers in their own game must feel amazing :) Maybe board should lower the teams that made the decision. How hard it can be create a model and calculate. Apple is better at Finance than GS.
Who is "beating" someone here? In adult reality, Apple are likely "concerned" rather than "feel amazing" if this isn't sustainable for their strategic partner. If your wife is miserable, you'd be dumb to think "I am better at marriage than she is" because eventually it's going to end.
Also. Businesses make bets. GS made a bet on consumer finance and on this deal in particular. You hope that every bet will work out, you know some won't and that's fine as long as you have more wins than losses. GS seems fine holistically so seems like they are taking a calculated amount of risk.
Are we talking about GS that has direct access to money printer and cheaper credit so they have certain revenue and profit no matter what? In the other hand, Apple creates hardware and software with real world risk. Supply chain risk etc. They are not like they can just manipulate markets to make billions for their staff. That game.
The UI and the repayment scheme for that cards' promotions and servicing is ridiculously confusing. I ended up in arrears due to Goldmans shitty servicing methods and had no idea how until I contacted customer service. I had been making larger than required payments and could not fathom why my card was being disabled.
These guys should have brought people in who know what they are doing. Instead it looks like they clumsily let Apple dictate some requirements and were not able to guide product development properly due to their own inexperience.
Blind leading the blind.
I have familiarity with another payment product Apple launched with another shaky partner. The problems there were mostly technical though, since the company had vast servicing experience and could competently guide that part of product development.
Apple really should create a consumer Fintech division that can do implementation. They might be steering clear of that due to the GE case study. They don't need to be or own a bank but their presence and size would likely be an outsized portion of the business in most banks that would take them on as a partner.
Setting up a bank and running a consumer facing product (Fintech) are two different projects altogether. Two different modules, if you will.
I also witnessed MasterCard falter when entering a consumer market they had not played in before. Very ugly.
I think Apple keeps approaching perceived industry leaders and keeps getting bad advice. A better choice might be to recruit talent from smaller Fintechs where the people are intimate with the real world challenges and turn them loose.
Goldman played the tech startup game to launch its consumer banking division and is now finding out what happens when there aren't any VCs or retail investors to pass the bag to. They poured billions into user acquisition and signing sweetheart deals with companies like Apple without caring about how they will eventually make a profit. But surely they will make up for it in volume right?
Would have been so much easier if they bought a smaller fully-operational bank and rebranded it.
How exactly is Goldman Sachs losing $1-2B here compared to regular consumer banks, which don’t? The article mentions having to deal with all accounts having monthly close on the same day, but it can’t be the whole reason.
"This is completely unsurprising. The way banks make money on consumer credit cards is primarily through interest and fees, which primarily take advantage of people who are not financially literate. They also take intentional dark UX choices to ensure that collecting on fees or interest is much more likely.
Meanwhile, Apple Card had such high eligibility requirements (I got denied the first time I replied and I'm a HENRY tech worker with an 812 credit score) that the vast majority of the customers in the program are exactly the type of people who are high earning and responsible enough with money to pay the card off each month to avoid interest and fees. Apple made it a step further due to the integration into Wallet that allows you to easily track spending and ensure you can trigger payments in a way to avoid interest.
As a consumer, I love Apple Card, because it makes it simple to get base cash back and ensure I never get charged interest. Clearly it's a bad deal for Goldman Sachs, but I don't have any tears to shed for them."
Can’t really believe the $1-2B figure. I would guess this figure is inflated and the real problem is that GS is unhappy with something in the current arrangement and they are publicly signaling so to Apple.
I had an Apple Card for two months. It was the worst card I've ever used. It was rejected for ~5% of all transactions, randomly, online and in person, always with error codes no one could diagnose or correct. All I could do was call Goldman Sachs, who would tell me to try swiping it again, huh, that should have worked, we don't see any record of a transaction ever being attempted, and after half an hour with them they would tell me to call Apple and after an hour on the phone with Apple they would tell me it was Goldman Sachs' fault. I had more rejected transactions with my Apple Card than with every other debit/credit card I've ever had in the previous twenty years combined. Total crap, and completely incompetent, irresponsible "support". I cancelled it and went back to my bank cards.
Readit News
The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties. The cash back is super easy to use and visible (and the extra percentage on Apple purchases is a nice bonus).
I have some cards I use for perks (Amex Plat/Gold, United Club, used to have Chase Sapphire Reserve) but I used the Apple Card as my sole card for a while and I kind of miss the simplicity of it. With Amex I feel like I'm fighting against an Army of Amex employees trying to make it as hard as possible for me to use the card's perks where as with Apple I feel like they're genuinely trying to make the software usable for me, the incentives are more aligned.
Every time I have to use Amex's site to 'enable' a perk and then read the fine print to make sure I actually get the benefit it makes me angry at some invisible product manager that hates customers.
Airport lounges sound cool, my friends sometimes get a deal on travel/hotel. But they also can't use points in some situations for weird reasons. Another uses a spreadsheet to optimize his poins. I just can't devote that kind of time to that stuff.
And since you mention lounges - if you travel 3+/year, lounges and TSA Pre/Global Entry really lower the frustration of travel.
Deleted Comment
Wouldn’t be surprised if between the two Apple will be the one to keep the perks going longest though… my hunch is that SoFi will dial theirs down once they’re done trying to aggressively grow.
Apple still beats SoFi in the UI department though. More bank/card apps should be modeled after the Apple Card page in Wallet.
Also doesn't require the insanely good credit of the Apple card.
I gave up videogames because I didn't want to spend so much time in my head like that (I'll still gladly play tabletop games with other people, and even couch-coop videogames if I'm invited too, but I gave away my gaming PC), and I sure don't want to spend time fiddling with credit-card points games. It helps that we're mostly unhooked from "retail therapy" or whatever the term is these days.
What are the costs of cc points games? Who pays in the long run?
The best points are called dollars and are accepted everywhere, all the time, for any purchase.
While I don't use cash for everything, I do actively avoid credit cards that offer any of those "perks".
We will see. The Apple Card is using the Mastercard network. Recent article came out which shows MC does their own internal processing of transaction data for their personal gain.
I have requested my data through the GDPR portal — “My Data”. In theory, there should only be data for my other MC card.
https://www.mastercard.us/public/my-data/dgr-public/personal...
I do agree. It’s a nice card for those that don’t care about the “point warfare” (most programs offer 1-3 cents per dollar spent). Side note, GS is very generous with their credit limits. My limit is reaching almost $60K at this point and I maybe use 10% of it.
The one thing I do dislike about the AC is the support. It’s so bad
I'd bet that this is pretty close to 'everyone' at this point. Haven't we been reading stories on HN recently about how airline points are basically worthless these days? I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were essentially true for all travel-related points.
Do you have a source on this? The Apple Card uses Mastercard which is known to sell data.
Source: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-card/
And some of the issues are kind of self inflicted - the "always monthly on the nose" isn't a feature I really need, and I would actually prefer to offset that by a few days, so if they offered that as a feature I'd take advantage of it.
Then once I had the travel cards I started using them to see if I could optimize their perks.
There are a few downsides, specifically (a) no contactless chip in the credit card yet, (b) need to keep $1k on deposit and have at least one monthly deposit of any kind/amount (scheduled ACH for $10) to get the 2.5% rate, otherwise it's 1.5%, (c) minimum redemption $50, and (d) ACH processing is a little slow/awkward, so you probably want to pay a bit ahead of time. And generally the UX is a little rough etc, they are a small credit union and it's not super polished, but it's functional.
But yeah I'm tired of category gimmicks/etc, they are not usually worth it anymore. BOA Signature Visa has 3% on category of choice (online purchases or home improvement being the good ones) but it's only up to $2500 in spend per quarter, and they count the non-choice categories against your total bonus, so using it for gas/groceries costs you from the theoretical maximum of $75 total bonus per quarter. And they charge international transaction fees which completely negate the online purchase bonus for anything denominated in non-USD (at least it's not charging for international transactions in USD anymore). And they really screwed up on a fraud case that took CFPB intervention to fix - it turns out, the price of my dignity is apparently $75 a quarter.
The costco card has 4% on gas, which is good (especially when I had a nearby speedway I could buy beer at), but it doesn't cash out until the next calendar year (so you can wait up to 14 months for points) so I generally don't use that except for the end of the year (I'll wait 3-4 months, I won't wait 14). But I think this is emblematic of the problem - the costco card (and many other store cards) only gives 2% even in the store, so it's worse than the alliant, on top of the onerous cashout process! Even if you have a more typical 2%-on-everything card, the costco card is pretty much strictly worse because of the cashout. I mostly got it for the 2-year extended warranty, that was the value to me, but they dropped that benefit at the start of 2022, so, it's almost useless to me now.
Notionally I could use amex or something and try to make it my primary card I guess, but I'm not a business traveler, and the alliant is just mentally easier. 2.5% on everything if you keep the $1k in the account and set up a recurring monthly $10 ach transfer, done. No international transaction fees, what you see is what you pay (plus or minus actual currency conversion, which is unavoidable). Use it as your primary card and spend $2000 and you'll cross the $50 redemption threshold every month. Is fine.
The Amazon Prime card is also very good, 5% on all amazon purchases is good enough I'll make a special point of it. If you do most of your bigbox purchases there, it adds up quick. They also have very good cash-advance offers, right now it's 4% transfer fee and 2% APY for a year - but the cash advance pays off first, and new purchases continue to accrue interest at the full rate (25% or whatever), so, you want to lock the card while you're doing a cash advance, so you are also foregoing that 5% (really, 2.5% above the alliant) from amazon purchases, but, if you're mature with it, it's great for consolidating other debt or financing things that need to be done in cash.
Meanwhile, Apple Card had such high eligibility requirements (I got denied the first time I applied and I'm a HENRY tech worker with an 812 credit score) that the vast majority of the customers in the program are exactly the type of people who are high earning and responsible enough with money to pay the card off each month to avoid interest and fees. Apple made it a step further due to the integration into Wallet that allows you to easily track spending and ensure you can trigger payments in a way to avoid interest.
As a consumer, I love Apple Card, because it makes it simple to get base cash back and ensure I never get charged interest. Clearly it's a bad deal for Goldman Sachs, but I don't have any tears to shed for them.
Many of whom never become rich because they spend money as fast as they earn it.
It is mostly older Millenials/Xennials with professional jobs. They earn more than 2x the national median income, but have a net worth that's less than 3x their income or $1M (whichever is larger).
Deleted Comment
But you're otherwise spot on. Because I'm an American tech worker, I've never missed a payment the whole time I've had it, or even had to worry about it much. It's been great for my credit score and I've literally paid zero interest on it, ever.
So you just needed some spare change to spend in AppStore? Try adding one or two zeroes to it, and see if you get approved then :)
https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/16/apple-card-future-goldmans-sa...
Also an additional fu if I deposit more money into the savings account since they have to invest that money to guarantee the interest rate. Lol
I love it. The savings account is offering 4.15% right now. Might move $10K into account just as a small fu to the GS executives.
The above article is kinda slim on why this is bad for GS but the sense that I got from clicking one link down is that the concrete thing is their 'platform' business has not recouped its investment. As in, they paid a bunch of people, paid for a bunch of integrations, etc and aren't generating sufficient offsetting revenue. Given how cards and accounts work, I suspect the incremental margin on a given CUSTOMER is positive. So yes, I think they would be happy to get the merchant fees off of your increased Credit Card spending and to enjoy the spread between your 4.15% and whatever they invest in which presumably pays more.
If you don't want to deal with some random bank and their crazy password requirements, you can probably buy CDs through your ordinary brokerage account.
Finally, if you want to FU a bank, depositing your money there isn't the best way to do that. Start spreading rumors that Apple Card savings is about to be insolvent and get everyone to withdraw their money. That they hate. Ask Silicon Valley Bank.
You haven't stated, but seem to imply that the stated rumors would not be founded at the time they start being spread. I'm not a lawyer, but spreading unfounded rumors for any purpose (much less with the intent to cause financial harm) seems unwise.
Disclaimer: left Goldman a couple years ago. My GS holdings are a rounding error in my portfolio.
Depending on the deal with apple, the 4.15% through apple could be worse for GS, but it would also be worse for you. (Not to mention, treasuries are over 5% and don't incur state income tax)
Also. Businesses make bets. GS made a bet on consumer finance and on this deal in particular. You hope that every bet will work out, you know some won't and that's fine as long as you have more wins than losses. GS seems fine holistically so seems like they are taking a calculated amount of risk.
A real world manifestation of the thundering herd problem
These guys should have brought people in who know what they are doing. Instead it looks like they clumsily let Apple dictate some requirements and were not able to guide product development properly due to their own inexperience.
Blind leading the blind.
I have familiarity with another payment product Apple launched with another shaky partner. The problems there were mostly technical though, since the company had vast servicing experience and could competently guide that part of product development.
Apple really should create a consumer Fintech division that can do implementation. They might be steering clear of that due to the GE case study. They don't need to be or own a bank but their presence and size would likely be an outsized portion of the business in most banks that would take them on as a partner.
Setting up a bank and running a consumer facing product (Fintech) are two different projects altogether. Two different modules, if you will.
I also witnessed MasterCard falter when entering a consumer market they had not played in before. Very ugly.
I think Apple keeps approaching perceived industry leaders and keeps getting bad advice. A better choice might be to recruit talent from smaller Fintechs where the people are intimate with the real world challenges and turn them loose.
Would have been so much easier if they bought a smaller fully-operational bank and rebranded it.
"This is completely unsurprising. The way banks make money on consumer credit cards is primarily through interest and fees, which primarily take advantage of people who are not financially literate. They also take intentional dark UX choices to ensure that collecting on fees or interest is much more likely.
Meanwhile, Apple Card had such high eligibility requirements (I got denied the first time I replied and I'm a HENRY tech worker with an 812 credit score) that the vast majority of the customers in the program are exactly the type of people who are high earning and responsible enough with money to pay the card off each month to avoid interest and fees. Apple made it a step further due to the integration into Wallet that allows you to easily track spending and ensure you can trigger payments in a way to avoid interest.
As a consumer, I love Apple Card, because it makes it simple to get base cash back and ensure I never get charged interest. Clearly it's a bad deal for Goldman Sachs, but I don't have any tears to shed for them."