Goldman Sachs rankles at Apple Card's 'created by Apple, not a bank' line

Apple's advertising does prominently feature Goldman Sachs, just not quite at the top of the screen

It's no secret that multinational financial business Goldman Sachs is the bank behind Apple Card, but the company wants to be clear that it's in charge. In a session with analysts during its legally-required financial earnings call, Goldman Sachs's Chief Financial Officer Stephen Scherr alluded to Apple's branding and advertising.

"I want to be really clear on this," Scherr told analyst Gerard Cassidy from RBC, "notwithstanding whoever lays claim to the creation of the card. There's only one institution that's making underwriting decisions, and that's Goldman Sachs."

"We have set targets and goals and objectives along with Apple as a good partner would," he continued, "and Apple is completely in the know as to sort of how we are going about these underwriting decisions."

"But the ultimate decision sits with us and so we calibrate, manage our risk and collections in the context of that. And so I think I just want to be really clear about that, it is the bank that renders underwriting decisions in that regard," he concluded.

It's known that Goldman Sachs has invested heavily on developing Apple Card — and spends $350 for every signup — but according to Business Insider, the company also delayed many other projects as it reassigned its engineers to the project.

The company's policies for determining credit limits has come under attack from politicians.