Goldman Sachs still working to exit Apple Card partnership as consumer losses top $6 billion

Goldman Sachs is still looking to exit its partnership with Apple as losses continue to mount. As detailed in a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs will take a $400 million hit this quarter due to its floundering consumer business.

Speaking at a conference this week, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon explained that this $400 hit comes from two primary things: selling off its General Motors credit card partnership and selling real estate loans. According to the report, the General Motors card business will be sold to Barclays, with around $2 billion in card balances.

In total, Goldman Sachs has lost over $6 billion pre-tax since the beginning of 2020 “on a big chunk of its consumer-lending businesses, including its credit cards.” As reported in the past, a few factors contribute to Goldman’s massive losses associated with Apple Card, including charge-off rates that are nearly double those of other credit cards.

Goldman Sachs had planned to use Apple Card to bolster its efforts to expand into consumer banking. In the intervening years, however, the bank has decided to exit the consumer business altogether, including consumer loans and other offerings.

Looking toward the future, Goldman Sachs is still looking to exit its partnership with Apple, which consists of the Apple Card and Apple Card Savings Account. Currently, Apple Card credit card balances total $17 billion. The Wall Street Journal says that Goldman Sachs could face even bigger losses when it offloads the Apple partnership than the losses associated with the GM sale to Barclays.

Last November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had “sent a proposal to Goldman to exit from the contract in the next roughly 12-to-15 months.” The current fate of that proposal remains unclear. It’s previously been reported that Goldman has talked to American Express and Synchrony Financial about taking over the Apple Card business.

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