The outlines of the divorce that has been on the lips of all of Wall Street since yesterday are beginning to emerge. There partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs in the field credit cards has reached the end of the line.
The divorce between Apple and Goldman Sachs
After just three years of activity and the extension of the partnership until 2029 signed last year, the backtracking made noise and is making even more noise now that it has been discovered that it was Goldman that decided to pull the plug first, probably because it was too expensive and because the partner, namely Apple, had become a little too cumbersome. At that point Cupertino presented a proposal to Goldman that it plans to do terminate the entire partnership within the next 12-15 months. A cooperation that concerns both the credit card launched four years ago and the savings account launched this year.
Apple: new supplier or Apple Bank?
Now all of Wall Street is trying to figure out what they will be Apple's next moves. Is there already a new supplier or will it continue on its own and enter – for real this time – the banking sector? Currently, we still don't know what Apple's real intention is, which has limited itself to making it known that it will continue "to innovate and offer consumers the best tools and services".
According to the rumors at the door there could be a little convinced American Express (contacted by GS itself, intending to sell the business to it) but above all Synchrony Financial, the largest provider of credit cards for commercial businesses in the USA. In the past the company had presented an alternative offer to that of Goldman for credit cards and currently has active partnerships with giants of the caliber of Amazon and PayPal.
Among the hypotheses on the table there is also the one relating to the possible birth of an Apple Bank with Cupertino ready to enter the banking sector directly. A hypothesis which, however, neither traditional banks nor supervisory authorities like.
As the number one of the ECB's Banking Supervision explained Andrea Enrico al Sole24Ore "Big Tech represents the real challenge for banks, if they obtained a banking license it would raise the question of the size of the market power they would have due to their ability to bring together an enormous amount of information on a global level”.
So far the "danger" has been averted, but the divorce between Apple and Goldman Sachs could reshuffle the cards on the table, also considering the ongoing negotiations between A, the parent company of Google, and Monzo Bank, with the Mountain View company which would like to enter the capital of the Institute through a capital increase of 400 million pounds.
And Goldman Sachs?
However, the heaviest repercussions of the divorce will be felt by Goldman Sachs, which sees its main attempt to diversify its business waning. According to rumours, sparks would never have struck between the two giants, above all due to some marketing initiatives by Apple which would have put Goldman in great difficulty, also from a regulatory point of view. The main reason for the decision to say goodbye to the partnership would be however the costs are too high that Goldman Sachs would be forced to take on a payment program that continued to generate losses.
It should also be taken into consideration that the one with Apple was not the only separation that Goldman was forced to face: recently, the company led by David Solomon announced its intention to withdraw from the credit card agreement with General Motors and divested its consumer banking company GreenSky.
