Goldman Sachs wants to be in the consumer finance business. Apple wants to integrate itself more into its customers' wallets. To satisfy both desires, they are reportedly coming together to launch a new joint credit card as early as next year.
The new credit card is expected to carry the Apple Pay brand and may bring perks for its credit card customers, according to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
The credit card is only the latest news of Apple's and Goldman Sach's marriage. In February, Goldman Sachs was discussing with Apple introducing a financing plan to help customers buy iPhones and other Apple products at a lower interest rate than other credit cards.
Goldman Sachs, which has been a Wall Street powerhouse in investment banking for decades, has pivoted toward more consumer-based banking in the past two years. In 2016, Goldman Sachs launched its consumer division, Marcus, providing credit-card debt and other financing loans at the point of sale of a product with a lower interest rate than its competitors.
Without a brick-and-mortar presence of retail bank branches, Goldman Sachs resorted to referrals from companies like Intuit-which runs TurboTax. Last month, Goldman purchased the personal finance startup Clarity Money, adding more than 1 million customers who use Clarity Money into Marcus.
Apple, meanwhile, has been exploring new ways to expand Apple Pay, as other mobile payment systems like Google Pay (formerly known as Android Pay) and one in Facebook Messenger have sought customer's wallets. Apple Pay is also part of a larger services business-along with App Store, Apple Music and others-that has provided strong growth for Apple in recent earnings results.
The Goldman Sachs-backed Apple Pay credit card may provide advantages to Apple, which currently has a credit card with Barclays that the Goldman partnership will replace. The Barclays card offers interest-free financing on Apple product purchases. But Apple makes only 0.15 percent per transaction, and Goldman Sachs may more than double that percentage, according to the Wall Street Journal.