Last week Apple confirmed what had long been rumored: Chase is becoming the new issuer of Apple Card. Per The Wall Street Journal, the move is already making an impact on JPMorgan Chase’s bottom line—and not in a good way.
Event Context
Alexander Saeedy writes at The Wall Street Journal:
JPMorgan Chase reported that the bank’s profit fell 7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, dragged down by a charge from its deal to take over the Apple credit card program and a surprising slip in investment banking fees. […]
Last week, JPMorgan said it would be acquiring the Apple credit-card program from Goldman Sachs, which led JPMorgan to take an extra $2.2 billion charge for potential future loan losses on the roughly $20 billion in balances. That dragged down the quarter’s results by 60 cents per share, the bank said.
Despite Apple Card being fairly popular among consumers, the product has clearly not been a success for original (and still-current) issuer Goldman Sachs.
You can find a lot more details about the troubled Apple-Goldman Sachs history here.
In short, Apple Card has been a bit of a headache for the firm. And it’s come with significant financial losses.
None of this is really surprising. It’s not like Apple duped Chase into taking over the portfolio. They negotiated over this for 2 years. Chase knows what they are doing in credit cards/ banking, whereas Goldman Sachs was just entering the market.
Team Analysis
There is 0% chance that Chase took this as a loss leader. I don’t know the exact reasoning for the 2.w Billion dollar reserves, but I’m 100% sure Chase knew this. Either they had to recognize this expense as soon as they were aware of it, or else they are able to set aside the reserves over time & have chosen to make this down payment in the current Quarter.
One has to wonder why Chase agreed to take on Apple Card in the first place, considering the challenges Goldman Sachs faced.
Some sort of changes to Apple Card are anticipated. Though at this point, Apple has largely emphasized continuity for existing Apple Card users, with more details to follow later.
Match Outlook
Also, it is 100% guaranteed that there will be changes to the card when Chase takes over. Goldman was willing to do a lot of things that no one else would to gain the Apple Card business, hoping it would be the lynchpin of their push into consumer banking. It obviously didn’t work out. No one is going to take that business and run it the same way. Some of the things Goldman may be feasible (things like the end of month due date & beginning of the month billing were probably a challenge when the Apple Card is 90% + of your business, but much more doable when the Apple Card is a tiny fraction of your credit card portfolio). other things (no fees, etc) probably won’t make the cut.
Even though Chase isn’t officially taking over Apple Card for another two years, the bank is planning ahead for potential losses in the future. Thus, the extra $2.2 billion charge that contributed to a loss in the quarter.
What sort of Apple Card changes are you expecting when Chase takes over? Let us know in the comments.
