Cobranded Credit Cards and Apple Card

In this post, I’ll try to deduce the reasons why Apple and Goldman Sachs decided to collaborate on Apple Card. What follows in this entry is my deduction from available information and based on my experience working in the credit card industry. First, I’ll touch on the concept of cobranded credit cards and what brands and issuers often get out of a partnership. Second, I’ll talk a bit about Apple Card. Last, I’ll give my thoughts on why Apple and Goldman Sachs may benefit from their relationship. These are my own thoughts only and if you have any thought or material that can contribute to the topic, I’ll appreciate it that you share with me.

Cobranded Credit Cards

You probably have seen a few cobranded credit cards before at popular stores or when you fly with domestic airlines

So, what exactly do brands and issuers get for working on cobranded credit cards?

Every brand wants to establish as close a relationship with consumers as possible. One of the popular methods is through a credit card with exclusive benefits. However, brands would be subject to a lot of regulations if they issued credit cards on their own. There would be also a lot of expenses that’d go into servicing accounts. No brand wants that extra burden in addition to running their own business. That’s why they need financial partners.

To compensate an issuer for bearing the risks and operational expenses, a brand usually takes care of the cost of exclusive brand-related benefits. For instance, shoppers receive 5% cash back at Target when they use Target credit cards. I don’t know the exact detail, but my guess is that Target will be responsible for most of the cash back, if not all. Additionally, brands can assist issuers with acquisition costs. Issuers spend thousands of dollars, if not much more, every year to acquire new customers. Brands have an already established relationship with their customers, brand awareness and financial resources that can help issuers in this regard.

On the other hand, issuers are responsible for dealing with financial regulations and servicing accounts. That’s why issuers try to sign as many partners as possible to leverage economies of scale. A small number of partners wouldn’t make operational expenses justified.

Issuers also have to compensate partners for leveraging their brand names. Agreements between issuers and partners vary on a case-by-case basis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if an agreement featured:

• An issuer pays a partner for each new acquired account and a smaller fee for a renewal
• An issuer pays a partner a fixed percentage on total purchase volume
• An issuer pays a partner a fee when accounts make the first purchase outside partners’ locations

What do issuers get in return?

Issuers, of course, keep all financial charges and fees such as annual fees, cash advance fees or late fees. Besides, issuers can generate revenue from interchange fees. In every transaction, a merchant bank which works with a merchant has to pay an issuing bank which issues a credit card to the consumer who shops at the merchant a small fee for accepting credit cards as payment. Payment networks like Visa or Mastercard act as a middle man between a merchant bank and an issuing bank, and decide how big the fee, which is called interchange, should be. What I just describe is a gross simplification of what transpires behind the scenes in a couple of seconds or less in a transaction. There is a lot more to it. Essentially, for the sake of simplicity, just imagine that for every transaction, an issue bank receives 2% of the transaction volume in interchange fees. So if an issuing bank handles $1bn in transaction a month, that bank will get $20 million in interchange fees. Lastly, as mentioned above, issuers can also leverage partners in terms of acquisition costs.

	Issuers	Partner Brands
Responsibilities	– Service accounts and handle regulatory compliance – Bear risks of charge-off – Compensation to partners	– Additional rewards expenses as selling points to consumers – Assistance in acquiring new accounts
Benefits	– Financial charges and fees – Interchange fees – Marketing leverage from partners’ outreach	– Deepen relationships with customers – Compensation from issuers

Apple Card

Apple Card is an Apple-branded credit card issued by Goldman Sachs. You can only apply for an Apple Card via your wallet app on Apple-produced devices such as iPhone or iPads. The Card is so synonymous with Apple that you can barely hear about Goldman Sachs.

Apple Pay’s selling points include:

• No fees
• Simple application process
• Premium look and feel
• Unlimited 2% cash back when you pay with Apple Card using your Apple Watch or iPhone
• 3% cash back from select merchants such as Uber, T-Mobile, Nike, Walgreens, Duanereade and of course, Apple itself
• Security as each transaction must be verified either by Touch or Face ID
• Apple and Goldman Sachs promise not to sell consumer data with a 3rd party for marketing purposes

What’s in it for Apple and Goldman Sachs in launching this Apple Card?

Goldman Sachs isn’t know for consumer banking. It’s known for its investment banking business. Apple Card is the first attempt at consumer banking from the renowned company. As the issuer, Goldman Sachs (GS) will have to deal with all regulatory and security challenges while bearing the risk of charge-off. They will also take part in servicing accounts, but the work is shared with Apple as Apple Customer Service agents handle upfront communication with users. Since Apple Card has no fees whatsoever, what GS can benefit from this collaboration, I allege, include

• Interchange fees
• Insane marketing power from Apple and its global footprint in the form of millions of installed iphones
• I imagine that if this collaboration succeeds, GS will want to sign more partners to achieve economies of scale, leveraging what they learn from operating Apple Card

Apple allegedly wants to launch Apple Card for two reasons: 1) to deepen relationship with users, to motivate them to buy their hardware more 2) to generate more service revenue. As a technology partner, I don’t imagine Apple will have to deal with fraud, regulatory or security concern. In exchange, Apple provides marketing outreach and technical assistance in incorporating Apple Card into its ecosystem. Additionally, from what I read, customers who need technical assistance will reach out to Apple Customer Service agents. Hence, that’s also what Apple brings to the table. Also, the company may allegedly be responsible for Apple-only rewards and interest free payment plans when customers buy Apple products. In terms of rewards with 3rd parties such as Nike or Uber, I can’t find any relevant information. If I have to guess, my money will be on Apple taking the bill for extra rewards as well.

	Goldman Sachs	Apple
Responsibilities	– Service accounts and handle regulatory compliance – Bear risks of charge-off – Compensation to partners	– Market Apple Card to users  – Offer technology to make the card work with Apple Pay and its devices – Help service accounts 3% cash back on Apple products and services – Interest-free payment plan for customers when buying Apple products
Benefits	– Interchange fees – Leverage marketing power from Apple and its footprint	– Deepen relationships with customers – Compensation from Goldman Sachs

According to Apple, the number of transaction through Apple Pay has grown substantially since it was launched. As of Jan 2020, the annual run rate for Apple Pay reached 15 billion transactions. Not all Apple Pay transactions are through Apple Card. The card debuted only in August 2019. Since Apple doesn’t offer details on Apple Card transactions, let’s run some scenarios by assuming that the annualized transaction count for Apple Card is 500 million to 2 billion. If average ticket size (dollar amount per transaction) ranges from $20 to $60, the transaction volume will be as follows

	Annualized Apple Card Transactions
	500,000,000	1,000,000,000	2,000,000,000
$20	$10,000,000,000	$20,000,000,000	$40,000,000,000
$40	$20,000,000,000	$40,000,000,000	$80,000,000,000
$60	$30,000,000,000	$60,000,000,000	$120,000,000,000

Interchange fee rate varies depending on numerous factors. However, if we assume that the rate is 2% of purchase volume, based on the scenarios above in Table 3, GS would receive the following as interchange fees

	Annualized Apple Card Transactions
	500,000,000	1,000,000,000	2,000,000,000
$20	$200,000,000	$400,000,000	$800,000,000
$40	$400,000,000	$800,000,000	$1,600,000,000
$60	$600,000,000	$1,200,000,000	$2,400,000,000

As you can see, the more Apple Card transactions, the bigger the interchange fees for GS. Given that Apple has legendary marketing prowess, an installed base of millions of devices and rising demand for contactless payments, the numbers may even grow bigger in the near future.

On Apple’s side, it is reported that Apple takes 0.17% cut on each Apple Pay transaction. In terms of Apple Card transactions, I think the cut will be even bigger, but won’t be bigger than GS’ interchange fee rate. Since we assume that GS receives 2% in interchange fee rate, let’s say Apple receives somewhere from 0.2% to 1% on purchase volume. How much would Apple receive, using the lowest purchase volume for each scenario of transaction count (first row respectively in Table 3)?

	Annualized Apple Card Transactions
	500,000,000	1,000,000,000	2,000,000,000
0.20%	$20,000,000	$40,000,000	$80,000,000
0.50%	$50,000,000	$100,000,000	$200,000,000
1%	$100,000,000	$200,000,000	$400,000,000

A few days ago, Apple and Walgreens announced that new Apple Card customers would receive $50 bonus in Apple Cash after spending at least $50 at Walgreens using the card. The promotion is valid till the end of June. It signals to me that 1) Apple wants to acquire more customers for Apple Card and 2) Apple may also receive a fee whenever a new customer comes on board. I don’t imagine $50 bonus would be paid for Walgreens or GS. Why would they do so when there is no sustainable benefit? If Apple shoulders the cost of the acquisition bonus, or at least most of it, it will likely not make financial sense to just rely on fees from card purchases to recoup the investment.

In sum, I hope that the information I shared and my thoughts are useful in helping you understand more about the credit card world that is complex yet fascinating. I spent quite some time thinking about the collaboration between Apple and Goldman Sachs as the presence of a tech giant and an investment bank in the consumer banking area is quite interesting. There isn’t much information out there so I would love to learn from whoever has useful information to contribute to the topic at hand.

Disclaimer: I own Apple stocks in my personal portfolio