Report: Goldman May See Pressure in Leaving Apple Partnership

Goldman Sachs is reportedly facing an uphill climb in exiting its Apple Card partnership.

The Wall Street giant is expected to face pressure from possible issuers to lower the value of its stake to make the price more enticing, Reuters reported Monday (Dec. 18), citing sources familiar with the matter.

Those sources say prospective issuers will likely try to encourage Apple to alter the terms of the deal, while other sources said these companies will want access to Apple’s proprietary credit card data.

The Reuters report notes that Apple does not sell cardholder data to third parties for advertising or marketing.

Sources also tell the news outlet that Citigroup, Capital One and Synchrony would be logical candidates to take on the card business if the terms are changed.

A spokesperson for Goldman declined to comment when reached by PYMNTS.

The news comes three weeks after reports that Apple was ending its four-year-old credit card partnership with the bank, apparently proposing an exit from the contract — for a program that was initially supposed to run through 2029 — in the next 12 to 15 months.

As noted here at the time, Goldman Sachs’ entry into the credit card space in 2019 sparked concerns among consumer banks about the arrival of a new competitor. But four years later, the firm is pulling back.

The bank has been pulling back from the consumer side of its business in recent months, with reports in November that it was looking to exit another credit card partnership, this one with General Motors.

And Goldman announced in October that it was selling its GreenSky consumer finance platform and the loans associated with it to a group of buyers led by global investment firm Sixth Street.

“This transaction demonstrates our continued progress in narrowing the focus of our consumer business,” said David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Solomon also noted that the move reflects Goldman’s strategy of putting more focus on its core franchises. He said GreenSky is an attractive business, but the bank wants to concentrate its efforts on global banking, as well as its markets and asset/wealth management operations.

PYMNTS wrote in the aftermath of the sale that the deal offered “evidence of just how bumpy a road can be in building out new business lines that promised to digitize and modernize lending and payments.”