The cautionary tale of Goldman and Apple’s credit card - FT中文网
登录×
电子邮件/用户名
密码
记住我
请输入邮箱和密码进行绑定操作:
请输入手机号码,通过短信验证(目前仅支持中国大陆地区的手机号):
请您阅读我们的用户注册协议隐私权保护政策,点击下方按钮即视为您接受。
FT商学院

The cautionary tale of Goldman and Apple’s credit card

Retail banking is not only harder than it looks but also heavily regulated by watchdogs who take their duties very seriously

To think it all started out so well.

When Goldman Sachs and Apple teamed up to launch a credit card in 2019, neither the storied investment bank nor the technology giant had much experience with consumer banking. That did not stop them from dreaming big.

They promised to offer “an innovative, new kind of credit card” with no fees and a cutting edge app “designed to help customers lead a healthier financial life.”

Goldman chief executive David Solomon hailed the Apple Card as the “most successful credit card launch ever,” and analysts predicted that the partnership would shake up financial services.

But five years on, the double act is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when big companies try to reinvent retail finance on the fly without thinking through all of the ramifications.

The top US consumer finance watchdog last week declared that Apple and Goldman had “illegally sidestepped” obligations to consumers in their haste to create a novel product. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the two groups to pay a combined $89mn for mishandling disputed charges and misleading customers about interest-free payment plans.

FT Edit

This article was featured in FT Edit, a daily selection of eight stories to inform, inspire and delight, free to read for 30 days. Explore FT Edit here

The partnership has also turned financially sour for Goldman Sachs, which is now trying to exit as it shuts down an ill-fated push into consumer banking that racked up billions in losses.

The saga is partly a warning about hubris. Retail banking is not only harder than it looks but also heavily regulated by watchdogs who take their duties very seriously. That can put the regulators at odds with buccaneering entrepreneurs who want to shake up existing ways of doing business.

Tech firms are used to launching in beta, a fancy way of saying that they put out a lightly tested product and then modify and improve it as problems are discovered. That attitude spilled over into the Apple Card. Goldman’s board was warned ahead of its August 2019 launch that the system for dealing with disputed charges was “not fully ready”. The bank, which would have had to pay penalties to Apple for a delay, opted to push ahead anyway.

In the first two years of the card’s existence, more than 150,000 customer-reported billing errors fell between the cracks in some way, the CFPB said. Apple often failed to send the reports to Goldman. When they did arrive, Goldman often failed to respond within legal deadlines — or at all. Customers were left on the hook for tens of thousands of charges that they disputed.

The CFPB also fined the partnership for the “confusing” way in which it offered a free instalment plan, saying that thousands of customers wrongly ended up paying interest anyway.

Innovations contributed to the issues. Apple designed a distinctive user interface and integrated the card into other iPhone apps. It also insisted that everyone’s billing cycle coincide with the calendar month, because that was simpler for customers.

The card won top rankings in customer satisfaction surveys. But some cardholders got lost in key processes and failed to file forms or tick particular boxes. The single billing date led to huge surges in disputed charges that overwhelmed Goldman’s customer service.

“You want to differentiate the product, but when you deviate from the norm, it can be confusing,” says Jason Mikula, a fintech consultant who previously worked at Goldman.

Entrepreneurs are often willing to pay that price for innovation. Financial watchdogs take a different view. There is a reason for that. If a fledging web search engine or a shaky chatbot offers less than perfect responses, where is the real harm? But charging customers unfairly or wrecking their credit scores causes measurable pain that regulators have a duty to prevent.

The episode carries lessons that another group of swashbuckling financial groups should heed: money managers racing to sell alternative assets to wealthy individuals.

Until recently, private equity and private credit firms took money almost exclusively from big pension funds and endowments and avoided most oversight that way. But now that the institutional market is saturated, they are jostling to offer largely untested products to retail investors who may or may not understand what they are buying.

Some alts firms have partnered with traditional asset managers, others are opting to charge ahead on their own. I hope these new funds and model portfolios work brilliantly. If not, you can be sure that the watchdogs are going to be waiting with bared teeth.

brooke.masters@ft.com

Follow Brooke Masters with myFT and on Twitter

版权声明:本文版权归FT中文网所有,未经允许任何单位或个人不得转载,复制或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵权必究。

华尔街对大型科技公司2000亿美元的人工智能支出感到担忧

本周,美国四大互联网集团的AI效益初现端倪,但也警告说将增加支出。

地中海已经变成危险的“汽油桶”了吗?

暴雨的部分原因是海水温度的危险上升。

从错失的投资机会中得到的教训

我是如何错过OpenAI、BrewDog和英国电信的?

决定特朗普贸易政策的内部竞争

在这位共和党候选人的第一个总统任期,其政府内部内斗不断。

政府顾问表示,英国应简化人工智能专家的签证程序

马特•克利福德关于促进科技产业发展的建议还包括设立数据中心特区。

为什么卡玛拉•哈里斯会赢

因为这仍然是经济问题,傻瓜。
设置字号×
最小
较小
默认
较大
最大
分享×