topic Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts? in Credit Cards

Apple Card by Goldman Sachs

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 16:51:12 GMT

The physical metal card has no card number, CCV code, expiration date, and no signature. The numbers can be found in the Wallet App. AutoFill will fill the numbers when using Safari. It gives 3% "daily" cash back on Apple products, 2% "daily" cash back on all other purchases with Apple Pay, and 1% with the card. It has no fees (i.e. foreign transaction fees, yearly fees, over-limit fees, and late fees). One fee does apply: late or missed payment wil result in additional interest. It is based on the Mastercard network.

There is no plan for a sign-up bonus. The underwriting is a mystery but Apple plans to make it as accessible as possible. There is no mention of authorized user cards. It is also unclear as to if the card will be a World Elite Mastercard.

Customer service will be accessible through text message - I would think it is AI based.

On the Wallet App it provides a more modern look and credit card experience. The Wallet App allows you to schedule payments as often as you want. It provides a breakdown of your spending habits and it helps you determine the interest that you will pay if you pay a certain amount for the month. It offers a "competitively" low interest rate. An Apple promotion shows a variable APR from 13.24% to 24.24% based on creditworthiness as of March 2019.

Apple also promises that "Goldman Sachs will never sell your data to third parties for marketing and advertising." The card is expected summer 2019.

What are your thoughts on the card?

I will update as more information becomes available.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:36:55 GMT

It definitely sounds like it's poised to shake-up the credit card industry. I'm going to keep my eye on this one as it could be worth coming out of the garden for if there's a decent SUB.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:01:21 GMT

It's unique. I still don't know how I feel about this..

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:05:32 GMT

Looks kinda meh as far as rewards are concerned. I’m sure fanboys will eat it up, card being titanium and all.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:06:28 GMT

maybe for purchases in app store (music and apps)

for other categories - not interesting at all

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Sevenfeet — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:12:10 GMT

A 2% cash back card for purchases makes it competitive with other cash back cards without having to do categories or other "gamification". If anything, the "gamification" is the Mint-style money management features built into the Apple Wallet app. 3% at Apple Stores makes sense. And although the physical card is a sleek titanium metal card, curiously you only get 1% cash back using the physical card giving everyone an big incentive to use Apple Pay and not take the actual card out of your wallet.

I like the fact that you can easily setup multi-payment days to keep interest charges to a minimum....how often is this touted as a "feature" with other cards? Apple is saying that interest rates will be industry leading....we'll have to see what that means. But I'd love an excuse not to use some of my "gamification" cards with higher interest rates (I'm looking at you Discover and USBank).

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:18:23 GMT

The payment/interest/money management tools and data sounds interesting if that is something that appeals to you.

No card #/exp or other info other than your name on the physical card sounds neat - is that a first?

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 18:29:57 GMT

All the places I shop use Apple Pay so it’s essentially a 2% card. With no info on the card I guess the CVV and other info is in the app?

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 19:23:23 GMT

Edited: I went for it so this is no longer relevant.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

DeeBee78 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:04:14 GMT

I think Apple had an opportunity to truly revolutionize the credit card industry, and only partially did. a 3-2-1 card is nothing new, and you're forced into 1% by needing to use the physical card when a brick & mortar or online merchant doesn't support Apple Pay.

The no fees aspect is nice, but somewhat useless since overlimit fees are essentially extinct or opt-in anyways, and there are plenty of other cards out there with no annual fee or FTF. I would imagine that the majority of consumers paying their bills on time don't even factor a late fee into the decision making of opening a new account.

I'm a pretty big Apple spender, but I don't see this card making it into my rotation. University discount + no sales tax + 2% cashback on purchases is a hard combination to beat.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

RicHowe — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:11:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
It definitely sounds like it's poised to shake-up the credit card industry. I'm going to keep my eye on this one as it could be worth coming out of the garden for.

Um. no. Not really.

There are several things working against this being a successful launch, or at most, a card with limited appeal and interest.

1.) Goldman-Sachs has NEVER issued a credit card before. Expect there to be issues in customer service and provisioning of the card at launch. Unfortunately, you only get one shot at first impressions and this is set up to stumble out of the gate.

2.) Apple ALREADY has had a card through Barclays, and it failed to really bring out the fanboys and fangirls. Generally speaking, successful credit cards address one of three consumer segments: Those looking for rewards, those looking for a low interest rate, or those choosing a card based on an affinity. This is an affinity play and since the numbers for the Barclay's card don't seem to have moved the needle much, don't expect this to either.

3.) The money management features in the Apple Wallet are not sexy and more important, are not groundbreaking or market disrupting. Furthermore, the real benefit to having that data is to use the analytics for some other purpose. Since Apple is a technology company and not a data-driven company like Google or Facebook, there is no payoff for Apple shareholders as a value add to build equity. So your Apple Watch alerts you to an upcoming payment. Big deal.

Add to the above that the awards are not ground-breaking and I find it hard to believe this to be a market disruptive card.

It looks good though. I'll give you that.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

imaximous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:08:27 GMT

I'm not interested in the regards program, but if they announce ongoing special financing on Apple products, and not just a one time introductory 0% when applying for the card, I'll go for it.

I also wonder about the credit criteria for applicants. During the presentation, Apple made it seem like it's going to be a piece of cake to get this card, but Goldman doesn't strike me as a bank that's going to give credit to people with not so stellar profiles. Who knows...

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:09:08 GMT

The Cash back is nothing exciting, not worth using one of your 5/24 on IMO .

That being said, I'm interested in the titanium card and it costs nothing to have, I'll go for it after getting the chase cards.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:12:30 GMT

Apple these days is genius at making cosmetic improvements under the guise of innovation

This card lost me at no SUB and weak cash back categories.

You could add better cash back cards to your apple pay and still have the same mobile security but better cash back

And if moble payments is really your thing US Bank Altitude Reserve gives 3x cash back on travel and all

mobile wallet payments.

The physical card that titanium with no #s or expiration definitely looks cool. but thats all i feel like it has to offer.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

DeeBee78 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:13:32 GMT

@RicHowe wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
It definitely sounds like it's poised to shake-up the credit card industry. I'm going to keep my eye on this one as it could be worth coming out of the garden for.
Um. no. Not really.

There are several things working against this being a successful launch, or at most, a card with limited appeal and interest.

1.) Goldman-Sachs has NEVER issued a credit card before. Expect there to be issues in customer service and provisioning of the card at launch. Unfortunately, you only get one shot at first impressions and this is set up to stumble out of the gate.

2.) Apple ALREADY has had a card through Barclays, and it failed to really bring out the fanboys and fangirls. Generally speaking, successful credit cards address one of three consumer segments: Those looking for rewards, those looking for a low interest rate, or those choosing a card based on an affinity. This is an affinity play and since the numbers for the Barclay's card don't seem to have moved the needle much, don't expect this to either.

3.) The money management features in the Apple Wallet are not sexy and more important, are not groundbreaking or market disrupting. Furthermore, the real benefit to having that data is to use the analytics for some other purpose. Since Apple is a technology company and not a data-driven company like Google or Facebook, there is no payoff for Apple shareholders to add value in addition to offering nothing that card users can't get other places. So your Apple Watch alerts you to an upcoming payment. Big deal.

Add to the above that the awards are not ground-breaking and I find it hard to believe this to be a market disruptive card.

It looks good though. I'll give you that.

My takeway from today's keynote is that Apple is heavily diversifying their services, in order to generate more profit. By doing that, they're throwing a bunch of things out there to see what sticks, this being one of them.

As a long time Apple fan, it's kind of sad to see them going this route, purely in the interest of profit and making shareholders happy. Seems like they are running a little low on hardware innovations these days.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

hawkins — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:17:05 GMT

It is certainly interesting and unique. Worthwhile? hmmm not sure. Time will certainly tell how well it does. As another person wrote, this is new for both Apple and Goldman Sachs. If I every decided to app for this it will be after a period of time to see how well both can work together. Getting the first gen of many things is often not worth it. Need to let them iron out the bugs first. At this point I would say not interested but who knows. Maybe in time.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Blackswizz750 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:28:10 GMT

It's a great marketing opportunity to get the apple fans on board. I think google pay already had a optional debit card along with storing credit cards and rewards(and gift cards) and such in your app to use with your phones.

Goldman Sachs don't look like they will give just anyone a card. They do have big money to back them up. Maybe they will buy a credit card lender are use a huge back end from Elan.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:32:49 GMT

I wonder how Apple plans to let consumers know that this isn’t that Barclays card that screwed them over... I would be very concerned about that image sticking...

This card is a pass for me. I like the look of it but everything else sucks. Come back to me when you offer 2% back on all purchases and throw in AppleCare+ benefits Apple.

This also screams superprime to me... I wonder if they’ll keep the Barclays as a fallback.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

DU556 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:43:24 GMT

I don't see this card replacing my Amex Amazon business card in the near future. The cash back options are not ground breaking, nothing to really get excited about and who really shops at apple stores that much to really benefit from the 3% CB? I'll wait until they increase their rewards program.

Re: Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Thoughts?

imaximous — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:44:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Apple these days is genius at making cosmetic improvements under the guise of innovation

This card lost me at no SUB and weak cash back categories.
You could add better cash back cards to your apple pay and still have the same mobile security but better cash back
And if moble payments is really your thing US Bank Altitude Reserve gives 3x cash back on travel and all
mobile wallet payments.

The physical card that titanium with no #s or expiration definitely looks cool. but thats all i feel like it has to offer.

There was no mention of a SUB because they just talked about the rewards and overall benefits during the presentation, but the card isn't available so I'd be surprised if there isn't any SUB at all. When the card is ready for launch, more details will be revealed.

I also agree that there are better earning cards, and I wouldn't use this Apple card over my AR for mobile purchases -- even at Apple. The AR is actually 4.5x and I can use it with Samsung Pay too.