Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wallstprog 1139 days ago
Maybe, but the actual "bank" in this arrangement is Goldman Sachs, and they are one of the more established players in finance.
1 comments

> the actual "bank" in this arrangement is Goldman Sachs, and they are one of the more established players in finance

Cupertino is also hosing Goldman in this relationship [1].

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/16/apple-card-future-goldmans-sa...

That needs to be put into context of the cost to acquire a customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_acquisition_cost

Various sources:

$80 https://askwonder.com/research/average-customer-acquisition-...

> The short version is that it costs around $80 to acquire a customer who returns about $120 in profit.

https://medium.com/unifimoney/changing-the-vicious-cycle-of-...

> It costs on average around $200 to acquire a credit card customer in the US (up to and beyond $1,000 if they are affluent cards like MasterCard World Elite and Visa Infinite).

https://runningwithmiles.boardingarea.com/apple-card-custome...

> The Apple Card doesn’t need any affiliates or marketing yet analysts say that this new card has a customer acquisition cost of $350 and will take several years for Goldman Sachs to turn a profit on it.

---

So the corresponding part of that is "we spent a lot to get a lot of customers. If they remain loyal, then GS will have something quite profitable for a long time." Spending $350 per customer is more than the $200 mentioned... but also much less than the $1000 for high end cards (and the tales of Chase Sapphire Reserve).