In a recent move, Visa has reportedly offered to hand over $100 million to Apple so as to take over payment processing when it comes to its credit card, thereby replacing Mastercard.
The offer comes due to Apple as it is in the process of replacing Goldman Sachs as the issuing bank in terms of Apple Card, post which the company decided to come out of the consumer lending portfolio.
The offer was reported on April 1, 2025, by the Wall Street Journal, which goes on to say that American Express happens to be among others that are trying to win the deal, while Mastercard is trying to retain the entire business. Credit card processors, such as the likes of visa as well as Mastercard communicate the transactions when it comes to the bank of the customer and the retailer and take a small cut for each transaction. Visa before three out a cash deal to become the payment processor for Costco’s credit card.
It is well to be noted that Apple introduced its credit card in 2019 so as to increase loyalty and at the same time generate a new stream of revenues. Apple does this by way of taking a cut of transaction fees and at the same time striking off a portion of earnings from the high-earning savings account that it offers by way of Goldman. Interestingly, Goldman reportedly went ahead to end its relationship with Apple due to the fact that it was bleeding cash by way of offering the card to the customers with very low credit scores, something Apple had gone into demanding. It also, in a way, could not charge yearly fees for the Apple Card, something that most of the premium credit cards come with these days. Goldman was, as a matter of fact, desperate to get into a consumer lending portfolio during the pandemic, and Apple, in a way, fleeced the bank.
But still, the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple Card customers happen to be carrying almost $20 billion in balances, thereby suggesting that whoever takes over the business could as well earn a lot of money if they can get to manage it better than what Goldman is doing now.
In addition to this, even the financial companies are also concerned that Apple could go further to slash them out of the business if it decides to take charge of even more of the payment stock; notably, Apple traditionally is known to take charge of every aspect of its products.
However, there is a much bigger picture when it comes to Apple. The technology giant is increasingly becoming the epicenter of numerous consumers daily payments as well as other financial habits. Large banks as well as networks for years have been quite wary of the ambitions of Apple and, as a matter of fact, developed an enemy relationship, thereby taking steps to keep the tech giant out from making more inroads into consumer finance and at the same time seeking to be close to Apple.
The fact of the matter is that a network that freezes the deal is expected to keep close to Apple‘s future payment endeavors.
In late 2025, Goldman as well as Apple got hit with an almost $89 million fine from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau due to problems with the rolling out of the Apple Card. This included poor customer support as well as unclear terms for its zero-interest finance agreements on the purchase of items from Apple’s website.
The bureau went on to report that cardholders in a way assumed that all purchases made from the Apple website, which were done using the card, were in fact eligible for zero-interest financing, whereas the reality was that the cardholders needed to make use of the Safari browser and select a specific choice and check out so as to get the deal.
The credit card from Apple happens to be a fine product. However, there are other credit cards as well in the market that go to offer much better benefits, and in a way, they do not need cardholders to make use of iPhones. Apple pushes customers to make use of Apple Pay so as to get 2% cash back on spending, and with select merchants, it offers 3% cashback as well, whereas using the physical card only earns cashback worth 1%.
This card also does not offer the benefits of other cards, such as purchase protection or even access to exclusive lounges. The thing is that there are numerous other credit cards out there that offer the same exact cashback as Apple Card and, apart from it, other benefits too and do not leave users stuck with the Apple ecosystem.
