Goldman Sachs' Apple Card saga is finally coming to an end

By Emily Bary and Claudia Assis

JPMorgan to take over the card program, which had been a major headache for Goldman

Tim Cook announced the Apple Card in 2019.

On the surface, it seemed like the perfect pairing of premium brands. But Goldman Sachs' work with Apple on a cobranded credit card didn't go so smoothly.

Now Goldman (GS) has officially parted ways with the Apple Card program. Apple (AAPL) and JPMorgan (JPM) confirmed Wednesday that they struck a deal to take over the card relationship, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier.

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Apple and JPMorgan said they expect a transition of about two years, and that Apple Card users will continue to enjoy perks such as up to 3% cash back on purchases and access to a high-yield savings account. Mastercard (MA) will remain the payment network for Apple Card, they said.

The Journal story said that the Apple Card, which launched in 2019, featured "a high exposure to subprime borrowers and what has been a higher-than-industry-average delinquency rate, creating the potential for significant losses on the outstanding balances."

Through the partnership, Goldman Sachs was trying to expand more into consumer lending. But the company racked up $7 billion in losses through some of its consumer-loan endeavors since 2020, according to the report.

There were also quirks of the Apple Card program that didn't quite work out for the Goldman team, according to the Journal's prior reporting, which said in 2023 that Apple required customers to get their statements at the start of every month, bucking an industry trend in which cardholders don't all get their bills at the same time. The Apple policy meant support representatives at Goldman had to deal with an influx of customer-service calls all at once.

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The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau in 2024 ordered the companies to pay $89 million over what it called "customer-service breakdowns" around transaction disputes.

More from MarketWatch: Visa, Mastercard reach new settlement with merchants. Will it shake up credit-card rewards?

-Emily Bary -Claudia Assis

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01-07-26 1813ET