Goldman Sachs offers more banking services through Apple in revamped consumer approach

A relative newcomer in consumer banking, Goldman Sachs has expanded and extended a partnership with Apple that began a few years ago with the Apple Card. Now, Goldman is working on a high-yield savings account for Apple Card holders. The firm will also provide some of the back-end services that will allow Apple to offer Apple Pay Later, a new “buy now, pay later” plan. 

AnnaMaria Andriotis for The Wall Street Journal:

For years, Apple Inc. has been asking big U.S. banks to allow their customers to view deposit-account balances on its digital wallet, according to people familiar with the matter. The banks largely have declined, the people said, wary of ceding the customer experience to Apple and becoming simply the financial plumbing behind the scenes.
But Goldman has been happy to oblige… The partnership reflects Goldman’s revamped approach to consumer banking, a business it launched a few years ago to great fanfare that has yet to turn a profit. The bank has abandoned plans to build a full-service consumer bank in favor of providing banking services to wealth-management customers and through partnerships with companies such as Apple.
In October, the companies unveiled plans for the high-yield savings account where Apple Card customers would be able to deposit funds and earn interest on their cash-back rewards… Apple also sees big potential in buy now, pay later plans—whose popularity has soared in recent years. Apple will connect to merchants through the Mastercard Inc. network. Goldman will serve as the sponsor, essentially issuing a card number that merchants will receive when consumers pay using the service.

MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Goldman is smart to work with Apple, as Apple product users have money and the proven will to spend it – and, hopefully, once Apple’s high-yield savings accounts are launched, to save some of it, too!
This is, of course, unfolding as foretold:
The bottom line: Those who settle for Android devices are not equal to iOS users. The fact is that iOS users are worth significantly more than Android settlers to developers, advertisers, third-party accessory makers (speakers, cases, chargers, cables, etc.), vehicle makers, musicians, TV show producers, movie producers, book authors, carriers, retailers, podcasters… The list goes on and on.
The quality of the customer matters. A lot.
Facile “analyses” that look only at market (unit) share, equating one Android settler to one iOS user, make a fatal error by incorrectly equating users of each platform one-to-one.
When it comes to mobile operating systems, all users are simply not equal. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, November 15, 2014

Android is pushed to users who are, in general:
a) confused about why they should be choosing an iPhone over an inferior knockoff and therefore might be less prone to understand/explore their devices’ capabilities or trust their devices with credit card info for shopping; and/or
b) enticed with “Buy One Get One Free,” “Buy One, Get Two or More Free,” or similar ($100 Gift Cards with Purchase) offers.
Neither type of customer is the cream of the crop when it comes to successful engagement or coveted demographics; closer to the bottom of the barrel than the top, in fact. Android can be widespread and still demographically inferior precisely because of the way in which and to whom Android devices are marketed. Unending BOGO promos attract a seemingly unending stream of cheapskate freetards just as inane, pointless TV commercials about robots or blasting holes in concrete walls attract meatheads and dullards, not exactly the best demographics unless you’re peddling muscle building powders or grease monkey overalls.
Google made a crucial mistake: They gave away Android to “partners” who pushed and continue to push the product into the hands of the exact opposite type of user that Google needs for Android to truly thrive. Hence, Android is a backwater of second-rate, or worse, app versions that are only downloaded when free or ad-supported – but the Android user is notoriously cheap, so the ads don’t sell for much because they don’t work very well. You’d have guessed that Google would have understood this, but you’d have guessed wrong.
Google built a platform that depends heavily on advertising support, but sold it to the very type of customer who’s the least likely to patronize ads.
iOS users are the ones who buy apps, so developers focus on iOS users. iOS users buy products, so accessory makers focus on iOS users. iOS users have money and the proven will to spend it, so vehicle makers focus on iOS users. Etcetera. Android can have the Hee Haw demographic. Apple doesn’t want it or need it; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth. – MacDailyNews, November 26, 2012
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