Goldman Sachs extends $10B in Apple Card credit over first month

According to regulatory filings made public this week, Apple Card financial partner Goldman Sachs said it doled out about $10 billion in credit lines for the Apple branded credit card in a little over one month.

The $10 billion figure is current as of the the third quarter, which ended on Sept. 30, just over a month after Apple Card launched launched on Aug. 20, reports Bloomberg.

Considering the fast pace at which Goldman is issuing credit for Apple Card, the present tally is likely much higher.

Apple Card's customer base carried a collective $736 million in loan balances at the end of the reporting period. As noted in today's report, calculating a card's success on loan figures is a difficult task, as competing issuers rarely break out performance on a per-card basis. That said, Goldman in October declared Apple Card to be the "most successful credit card launch ever."

"Since August, we've been pleased to see a high level of consumer demand for the product," David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, said of Apple Card at the time.

Apple CEO Tim Cook echoed Solomon's plaudits in an earnings conference call on Wednesday, but added a caveat, saying the launch was the most successful in U.S. history.

Significant capital layouts went into the development and debut of Apple Card, which marks not only the first card for Apple, but also Goldman's Marcus consumer banking division. Analysts in August estimated the bank is spending some $350 to acquire each Apple Card user.

Prior to launch, Goldman CFO Stephen Scherr said the company was intentionally slowing growth of unsecured personal loans under the Marcus brand to protect against exposure from Apple Card. The bank earmarked reserves representing 2.7% of existing credit card loans as it feels out customer behavior, the report said.

Apple continues to push Apple Card with ads that present users the option to gain 3% "Daily Cash" when paying for Apple products and services in its stores and online. Other benefits include a lack of fees, impressive security features and deep integration with the Apple Pay and the iOS Wallet app.

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32 Comments

rob53 3305 comments · 13 Years

About 5 years ago

Difficult to understand loan balances when the card doesn't really have a pay date. I end up using it like a combination credit and debit card, paying off chunks of purchases a few times a month. Not sure if my balance would show in this case.

Is $10B of credit lines a lot or a normal amount?

bluefire1 1310 comments · 10 Years

So the Apple Card is a credit card and Apple Cash is a Venmo competitor. For me, I love the Apple Card but will stick with Venmo for sending/receiving money.

emoeller 588 comments · 17 Years

I'm assuming the $10B figure is the value of all of the cards limits times the total number of cards issued Since the card limit varies by individual and the number of cards is not provided, the number is pretty meaningless in terms of card success.

Just for grins I looked up AMEX (2018) and they had a worldwide total number of cars outstanding of 114M with total spending of $1,184B (that's over $1 Trillion dollars), so while this is a good start for Goldman/Apple it is only a start.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

bluefire1 said:

So the Apple Card is a credit card and Apple Cash is a Venmo competitor. For me, I love the Apple Card but will stick with Venmo for sending/receiving money.

Besides sending cash to Android users what benefit is there besides lower security and more risks? Do they still charge you 1% for cashing out of your Venmo account? Do they charge more than 1% for an instant wire transfer? How long does an ACH take (I find that Apple is getting them done within hours)? Is Venmo FDIC insured like Apple Pay?

emoeller said:

I'm assuming the $10B figure is the value of all of the cards limits times the total number of cards issued Since the card limit varies by individual and the number of cards is not provided, the number is pretty meaningless in terms of card success.

Just for grins I looked up AMEX (2018) and they had a worldwide total number of cars outstanding of 114M with total spending of $1,184B (that's over $1 Trillion dollars), so while this is a good start for Goldman/Apple it is only a start.

What did you expect after one month? What has any credit card—not just issuer—gained a single month of being on the market? I'm guessing that the GS Apple Card is the most popular and fastest growing card out of the gate.