Not to mention card transaction data is already available for sale, and by the network owners, nevermind the banks!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
It does seem odd for Apple to choose to hand that data over to the bank with the absolute least scruples. GS has made a name for themselves screwing their own customers.
I would’ve hoped Apple would partner with a smaller bank that has something to gain, and then say something like “because we care about your privacy, we have partnered with Bank X to develop the first credit card with truly private transactions” or something like that.
The fact that they just leak the data to the credit card industry is odd. With all their cash they could’ve bought a bank and issued the card themselves. Hopefully that’s their endgame.
It would have been awesome if Apple provided the lender and Visa/Mastercard/AMEX with a non-transferable license to use client/transaction data with Apple being the owner of the data.
In the US, you can't buy a bank without becoming a bank. Becoming a bank involves a lot of additional regulation.
It is goldman though after all, so you could be right!
It's not about Apple customers AND Goldman Sachs customers, it's about consumer trends. Having access to millions of purchases as they happen is useful unto itself when it comes to market trends. In this day and age effectively anyone can get HFT hardware / software, but having that pipe of data is a real moat that your average shop cannot compete with.
https://www.gsam.com/content/gsam/global/en/market-insights/...
The card networks can even receive data of exactly what is purchased at what price with level 3 data:
https://www.bluepay.com/payment-processing/gateway/level-3/
I know staples.com reports it because it shows you everything purchased on the AmEx statement, and hotel stays will have check in/check out dates.
Is that a diverse enough customer segment to draw any wider conclusions beyond this particular group of people? It seems pretty narrow to me, but perhaps you are right that the data has some value regardless.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
> does that mean that Capital One was allowed to trade on this data for its own profit? Wouldn't that be amazing? Surely the answer is no: I assume that Capital One signed agreements with retailers (or rather, with Visa and MasterCard, which signed agreements with retailers) in which it promised not to disclose transaction data, or use it for nefarious purposes.
If you think about it this makes sense. A retailer selling material non-public information to a hedge fund which then trades on it is essentially the same as them executing trades based on the data via the fund, which is obviously insider trading.
>Employees of law, banking, brokerage and printing firms who traded based on information they obtained in connection with providing services to the corporation whose securities they traded;
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like this particular situation to me.
They still couldn't /legally/ trade on things like "companyX asked us for a loan, so let's buy/short/etc companyX before they announce it", as that would be servicing companyX directly, and they learned the information (about the loan) from that servicing.