Goldman Sachs reportedly seeks new issuer for General Motors credit card
Goldman Sachs is reportedly planning to sell its General Motors credit card programme as it continues its retail banking retreat.
Goldman Sachs reportedly set to sell GM credit card programme
The programme serves purchasers and owners of General Motors vehicles, enabling them to earn rewards on their spending through the GM credit card.
Goldman Sachs beat out a small number of bidders, including Barclays, in October 2020 to purchase the credit card business from its then-issuer Capital One, reportedly for the sum of $2.5 billion.
However, it’s now understood that the bank has informed its Platform Solutions division, which manages the programme, of its intention to sell the business to a new issuer, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The big splash the bank was intending to make into retail banking in recent years has not materialised. This intention most notably includes the bank’s launch of a credit card scheme with Apple in 2019.
Instead, Goldman Sachs has been making moves to retreat from the retail banking market, with reports in July suggesting that the bank is now looking to offload its business with Apple too. The Wall Street Journal reported the bank was in talks with American Express, which could also be a forerunner for the GM business.
The bank’s increasing departure from retail banking was more recently signalled by the sale of its personal financial management (PFM) business to Creative Planning in August.
This was followed by the sale of GreenSky, a fintech lender and buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider the bank purchased in 2021 for $2.24 billion, to a consortium of institutional investors led by San Francisco-based investment firm Sixth Street.
The bank’s chairman and CEO, David Solomon, said at the time that the sale confirmed the “narrowing of our consumer business”, and that it was choosing to instead pursue “advancing the strategy we laid out for our two core franchises”.
