Goldman Sachs reportedly said Apple Card savings account was a mistake

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.

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.

Do you have a source on this? The Apple Card uses Mastercard which is known to sell data.

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

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'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 best points are called dollars and are accepted everywhere, all the time, for any purchase.

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.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/16/apple-card-future-goldmans-sa...

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.

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.

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.

"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."

Most high yield savings accounts are regional banks.

similarly to google turning into "internet microsoft"

and microsoft turned into ibm.....

The move going forward IMO for anyone building anything, is to use the tools of capitalism, against itself, to make profit and rent seeking favor transferring capital to labor and consumers over returns on capital.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/

Bigger banks are simply betting that people will not go through the trouble of moving their money.

You don't know what you don't know until you try, and they got burned.

I'm sure that they always have done "consumer bank-like stuff" but it's more like a favor to their big customers than an actual business, kind of like when a business that doesn't offer delivery will still drive stuff over to the owner's house.

And someone sold someone the bill of goods that Apple customers are "so perfect" and "high value" that the customer service will be absolutely minimal ...