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Comment by petesergeant | Hacker News Reader

Does it have to be Apple that caved?

Banks were not queuing up to do it the first time and it didn't work out well for the bank that did (Goldman). Who else is compromising

I have no insider knowledge here but it doesn't seem outlandish to think that the negotiations would go a little differently for an established product vs a brand new one. Goldman may have simply been the only bank willing to work with Apple when the customer base (in size, demographics, spending patterns, whatever) was hypothetical.

What bank offers rewards and no fees to subprime(below 660) customers? There aren't any. Why no wanted the deal. Guaranteed to lose money. Its not like there's name recognition, i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details. Everything is branded "Apple Card"

> i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details.

And in the bottom-right corner of the titanium card and in the picture in Wallet. And it's advertised practically everywhere they mention the titanium card. And if you have Apple Savings it's also specified to be from GS everywhere.

GS was inexperienced and didn't know what they were getting into; that's why Apple was able to get such a good deal and also why GS now wants out. I fear Chase does know what they're getting into and Apple likely has far less favorable terms now. Though I'm incredibly glad they didn't give it to Synchrony (who runs PayPal and is incredibly sociopathic)

I would imagine Goldman want out. They were never a retail banking firm to begin with. And sell the current Apple Card division with debt and customer base packaged at a discount.

Consider the transition takes 24 months I wouldn't be surprised if the discount allow them to run three years with clause to terminate at later date. The downside and exposure should be limited with great upside on worldwide launch.

But judging from Apple's speed with their execution in Apple Wallet this will likely take a lot longer than expected.

Yeah I was surprised finding out it's Goldman card - I haven't heard about Goldman doing a consumer cards before that (and I have a lot of cards).

I mean I dont fault Goldman for doing it, if they really want to venture into consumer sector there is no better partner than Apple to do it.

But the execution has been absolutely appalling.

Not sure which way this tips the scales, but Chase has a retail banking presence in the UK, GS doesn't. If Apple wants to expand Apple Card internationally, and want to keep the number of partners to a minimum, Chase would be a better fit. Inversely, Chase's market in the UK is still small, and an Apple Card partnership would be a big draw to pull customers in.

(UK reader here too).

You could well be right, though I have a couple of theories why they Apple haven't rolled it out here:

- maybe they think it'll just be too messy, having to market different cashback reward rates and so on for the US and UK, due to the capped interchange fees - too much "it's not fair" style moaning like everyone did about Black Friday, even though we don't even celebrate Thanksgiving here.

- Apple have somewhat de-prioritised UK/Europe generally given their dealings with the EU

- (as others have hinted) most banks simply aren't interested

From the outside it does seem as though there was basically nothing in it for Goldman Sachs, other than perhaps useful spending data (they must surely have got some data, regardless of Apple's privacy claims) and a bit of industry prestige for being the ones to work with Apple?

Absolutely. I'd imagine not being able to use the card at Costco alone would be enough to have them entertaining surprising concessions. It was the first thing I thought of, with Chase CC's being Visa instead of Mastercard.

Chase issues cards on both the Visa and Mastercard network (i.e. certain cobrands and the Freedom Flex), so I doubt this was a serious consideration.

Why would a bank chose to lose billions of dollars?

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