Apple and Goldman Sachs are trying to lure American depositors into new savings accounts by offering interest rates more than 10 times the national average.
The California-based tech giant and Wall Street bank launched a new savings account earning 4.15 percent annually after debuting the product in October.
That’s 0.37 percent higher than the U.S. savings account rate, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It outperforms competitors such as American Express, which offers 3.75 percent and 3.9 percent for Goldman Savings Accounts, which operates under the Marcus brand.
The opening comes as more established banks, particularly regional and smaller lenders, are under pressure to hold better savings rates and stop moving deposits into higher-yielding products such as money market funds, which offer increasingly better returns. Interest rates.
Since the Fed first started raising rates in March of last year, when lenders charged borrowers more for deposit rates at relatively low rates, customers have withdrawn about $800 billion in deposits from U.S. commercial banks.
The new savings account is being offered to users of Apple’s credit card product, in partnership with Goldman. Apple is offering savers no fees and minimal deposit requirements. The maximum balance per account is $250,000. Depositors are placed with Goldman, a licensed bank that can be insured as FDIC.
“Savings help our users get more value. . . We’re giving them an easy way to save money every day,” said Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.
The savings account deepens Apple’s portfolio of financial services products, which include a Buy Now, Pay Later program.
As Apple adds more payments and financial services, analysts say it’s becoming a bank. But Apple’s real strength is its revenue from hardware sales and non-banking services, said Paddle CEO Christian Owens.
“I don’t think Apple wants to be a bank,” he said. I think they can improve the economics of the bank without being Apple Bank. To leverage all these financial services with Goldman and they can be a conduit for so many things to the consumer, name it Apple, they cut that high margin and offload that kind of basic responsibility to Goldman. “
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