Apple launched savings accounts for Apple Card holders with a 4.15% rate
May 2, 2023
On launch day, owners put about $400 million into the savings accounts.
About 240,000 accounts were opened a week later, according to one source. The accounts are opened in partnership with Goldman Sachs Bank. Goldman's own savings account can be opened with a 3.9 percent interest rate.
"Banks were quick to respond to the Fed's interest rate hikes with higher rates on mortgages and auto loans, but depositors saw little or no increase in traditional bank deposit rates or savings accounts," says Richard Crone, CEO and founder of Crone Consulting, a payments firm.
The new savings account is available only to Apple Card credit card holders. Customers can open it in less than one minute right from their iPhone. Apple Card spending rewards are automatically transferred to the high-yield account. Customers can track their balance and interest on the dashboard integrated with the Apple Digital Wallet.
Before the savings account, daily cash rewards were automatically deposited into Apple Cash, a prepaid digital card stored in the iPhone digital wallet and issued by Green Dot Bank.
Crone Consulting estimates that $3.8 billion is transferred to Apple Cash from the Apple Card each year.
The amount in Apple High Yield Savings accounts will not be able to exceed the FDIC's $250,000 insurance limit.
Many traditional banks are struggling to maintain yields after the Federal Reserve's steep interest rate hike, and as a result few are able to offer a rate of 4.15%. However, Bask Bank, a division of Texas Capital Bank in Dallas, is opening savings accounts with an annual rate of 4.75%. Fintech companies, including Current, Varo and LendingClub, offer products with annual yields ranging from 2% to 4.25%.
Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs announced a $4 billion loss from its Platform Solution group. It includes Apple with its Apple Card project, whose losses reached $1 billion. Experts say that the bulk of the losses were loan risk reserves. This is the reason why Apple does not expand its own credit card project to other countries.
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