Goldman Sachs Overhauls Apple Savings Procedures to Cut Down on Withdrawal Delays

[Amazing Iceman]

Then I'll be opening an account in a few minutes

 

[mattoruu]

These jokers need to exit consumer banking.

Goldman Sachs definitely wants to exit. Current company management has made it very clear that it wants out of consumer banking. It is just kind of stuck right now in a banking segment that pervious management got the company into.

 

[mattoruu]

What I saw in the Apple Discussion Forums were people who deposited a large amount of money in the account and then tried to withdraw most of it the next day for reasons only known to them. Of course this raises a huge red flag in their banking industry about money laundering and the law requires a delay when the transaction is over $10K.

There is no such law that requires delays of transactions over $10,000. A law delaying all transactions of such a small dollar amount would grind the US economy down to a halt.

What you might be thinking is the rule that requires additional reporting for single transactions over $10,000. But it’s not something that most banking customers would even notice. It gets reported by your bank and (unless you get audited or whatnot) you might never know that a report was filed. It’s (of course) all automated nowadays, so the bank itself barely even notices, lol.

 

[Boeingfan]

Bank transfers in the U.S. typically take 2-3 days. You can do a wire transfer in 1-2 days if you are willing to pay a $10 fee, at least at my banks.

Goodness me that's disappointing. I'm unsure what a wire transfer is, though I'm guessing it's the most expeditious way of electronically transferring money to someone?

A couple of years ago Australia introduced the NPP, New Payments Platform, which means paying bills and transferring money across banks is almost instantaneous. https://nppa.com.au/

Needless to say, it has been great, even though the banks deliberately initially dragged their sorry arses to implement it. They still find ways occasionally to delay payments for some transactions, for example on weekends and public holidays for new or irregular payments, even though computers don't get these holidays

I hope this step by GS is an increment in the lead up to faster payments overall for you guys.

 

[Boeingfan]

Goldman Sachs definitely wants to exit. Current company management has made it very clear that it wants out of consumer banking. It is just kind of stuck right now in a banking segment that pervious management got the company into.

I wonder why this is? Is consumer banking a pain in the a$$? Are the profits marginal compared to being able to rip off other companies?

 

[mattoruu]

Goodness me that's disappointing. I'm unsure what a wire transfer is, though I'm guessing it's the most expeditious way of electronically transferring money to someone?

A couple of years ago Australia introduced the NPP, New Payments Platform, which means paying bills and transferring money across banks is almost instantaneous. https://nppa.com.au/

Needless to say, it has been great, even though the banks deliberately initially dragged their sorry arses to implement it. They still find ways occasionally to delay payments for some transactions, for example on weekends and public holidays for new or irregular payments, even though computers don't get these holidays

I hope this step by GS is an increment in the lead up to faster payments overall for you guys.

There is a new system called “FedNow” that allows for transfers in seconds 24/7, 365. But before you Google FedNow, please note that there are a lot of wild conspiracy theories about FedNow. So please take that into account and choose carefully about what you read and where you read it, lol.

 

[Boeingfan]

There is a new system called “FedNow” that allows for transfers in seconds 24/7, 365. But before you Google FedNow, please note that there are a lot of wild conspiracy theories about FedNow. So please take that into account and choose carefully about what you read and where you read it, lol.

That's great news! Based on what I read at https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm it sounds very similar or identical to what has been rolled out here. Conspiracy theorists to hell, I'll leave them to drown in their own noise.

"The FedNow Service went live on July 20, 2023. It is available to depository institutions in the United States and enables individuals and businesses to send instant payments through their depository institution accounts. The service is a flexible, neutral platform that supports a broad variety of instant payments. At the most fundamental level, the service provides interbank clearing and settlement that enables funds to be transferred from the account of a sender to the account of a receiver in near real-time and at any time, any day of the year. Depository institutions and their service providers can build on this fundamental capability to offer value-added services to their customers.


The FedNow Service is designed to maintain uninterrupted 24x7x365 processing with security features to support payment integrity and data security. The service has a 24-hour business day each day of the week, including weekends and holidays. End-of-day balances are reported on Federal Reserve accounting records for each participating depository institution on each FedNow Service business day. Access to intraday credit is provided to participants in the FedNow Service during its business day under the same terms and conditions as for other Federal Reserve services."

 

[mattoruu]

I wonder why this is? Is consumer banking a pain in the a$$? Are the profits marginal compared to being able to rip off other companies?

There are a myriad of reasons. But what it (mostly) comes down to is that Goldman Sachs has no core competency in consumer banking. That’s not what Goldman Sachs is. Goldman Sachs is an investment bank and financial services (first and foremost). And investment banking is very different from consumer banking. Goldman Sachs got into a business and basically had no idea what it was doing (an incredibly simplified assessment, but more or less true).

It’s very easy (relatively speaking, of course) to get consumer deposits. All you need to do is offer a high enough interest rate and the money will quickly follow. That’s the easy part. But… what do you do after you get all of that money and how do you make a profit? That’s the hard part which Goldman Sachs never figured out (which is why their consumer banking segment lost Goldman Sachs $3 billion or so since it began its push into consumer banking).

That was previous management though. Current management wants out and wants to get back to being a pure investment banking and financial services company. But there are deals and agreements already in place, so Goldman Sachs is kind of stuck in consumer banking for the time being.

Edit: My autocorrect thinks that “Goodman” Sachs is the correct word to use. I think (after a few edits) that I finally changed all of the “Goodman” instances back to “Goldman”, lol.

 

[Boeingfan]

There are a myriad of reasons. But what it (mostly) comes down to is that Goldman Sachs has no core competency in consumer banking. That’s not what Goldman Sachs is. Goldman Sachs is an investment bank and financial services (first and foremost). And investment banking is very different from consumer banking. Goldman Sachs got into a business and basically had no idea what it was doing (an incredibly simplified assessment, but more or less true).

It’s very easy to get consumer deposits. All you need to do is offer a high enough interest rate and the money will quickly follow. That’s the easy part. But… what do you do after you get all of that money and how do you make a profit? That’s the hard part which Goodman Sachs never figured out (which is why their consumer banking segment lost Goldman $3 billion or so since their began their consumer banking push).

That was previous management though. Current management wants out and wants to get back to being a pure investment banking and financial services company. But there are deals and agreements in place, so it is kind of stuck in consumer banking for the time being.

Wow, that's very interesting; thank you for explaining that. I guess it's a win win then if they exit, because I'm fairly confident most people would want a competent financial organisation holding their money, plus it gets them back to where they want to be.

I didn't see BOA in the list of FedNow participants, unless I overlooked them in the list. Are they typically a slow company to evolve?

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Generally, I agree with you here. But I think there's also the matter of people setting this up more because of the feature where it makes a place for your daily "Apple cash" to fall, when you earn the cash back on your Apple Card purchases.

A lot of people probably liked the idea of their daily cash going into some kind of interest earning account instead of accruing in an "Apple cash" balance that you'd typically have to take extra steps to transfer back into your checking account to use it.

I know I set my Apple savings account up, putting as much money as I could spare into it, because the initial interest rate they advertised it earning was pretty high. They've already dropped it back from 4.65% to 4.15% though. You can get 4.5% from either Citizens or SoFi right now, with a 1 cent minimum balance required. And assuming you can put at least $1000 in, Upgrade Premier Savings pays 5.07%.

Apple was never 4.65%

 

[mattoruu]

Wow, that's very interesting; thank you for explaining that. I guess it's a win win then if they exit, because I'm fairly confident most people would want a competent financial organisation holding their money, plus it gets them back to where they want to be.

I didn't see BOA in the list of FedNow participants, unless I overlooked them in the list. Are they typically a slow company to evolve?

I believe you are correct about Bank of America not currently being a FedNow participant (I don’t see BOA on the list, at least). FedNow is not required, so BOA can simply decline to use it for whatever reasons.

In general fast-evolving banks are often a recipe for trouble, lol. Although in this specific case, the American banking system has been so glacially-slow (compared to many other countries’ banking systems). As you know (with your Australia example) other countries switched to nearly-instant transfers a while ago (some countries switched decades ago).

 

[Infinitewisdom]

Does anyone actually deposit significant amounts into this? Sounds like a nightmare if you ever have to withdraw a lot at one time.

There are so many other options these days. Why even bother?

 

[Dark_Omen]

These American financial institutions need to get their act together.

First of all, wasn't FedNow launched in July? Transfers from one bank to another should be instant. I'm tired of American financial institutions dragging their feet, kinda like what they did with EMV chips and contactless.

Goldman is acting like they're doing people a favor here, when in reality, they're still a shady financial institution that's not much better than Wells Fargo.

 

[Deihmos]

Kind of annoying that Goldman Sachs has savings accounts that pay 4.40% APY, but not for Apple...

Cit Bank pays 5%. i ditched apple savings because it took too long to withdraw since there is no Zelle.

 

[jooish]

Cit Bank pays 5%. i ditched apple savings because it took too long to withdraw since there is no Zelle.

How long are the withdraw wait times with Apple Savings?

 

[ghanwani]

Still, a gain for the recipient.

Yeah, just think of uncle Sam’s share before you go spend all of it.

 

[svish]

Good to hear about the changes

 

[Shirasaki]

One thing that’s going to be instant is when you deposit money into Apple’s bank account to buy something from them. That transfer is instantaneous lol. (When it is cleared is a different matter)

Rich just hates average people using their own money. It makes no sense for withdraw to take days to clear, unless maybe the action is truly alarming.

 

[KOTN91]

Goldman sachs is yesterdays company and is a bit 1992. If it was a thing it would be a paper boarding pass

 

[Robert.Walter]

Generally, I agree with you here. But I think there's also the matter of people setting this up more because of the feature where it makes a place for your daily "Apple cash" to fall, when you earn the cash back on your Apple Card purchases.

A lot of people probably liked the idea of their daily cash going into some kind of interest earning account instead of accruing in an "Apple cash" balance that you'd typically have to take extra steps to transfer back into your checking account to use it.

I know I set my Apple savings account up, putting as much money as I could spare into it, because the initial interest rate they advertised it earning was pretty high. They've already dropped it back from 4.65% to 4.15% though. You can get 4.5% from either Citizens or SoFi right now, with a 1 cent minimum balance required. And assuming you can put at least $1000 in, Upgrade Premier Savings pays 5.07%.

To my awareness it was always 4.15 and we signed up the week it was announced.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Bank transfers in the U.S. typically take 2-3 days. You can do a wire transfer in 1-2 days if you are willing to pay a $10 fee, at least at my banks.

We have 3 different family member’s accts with gs Apple and same credit union.

We see that a withdrawal after gs got called out in wsj and apple came down in them went from min 1 day to a consistent half a day.

It's actually a bit slower to get money from cu into gs, takes about a day.

Now if they’d just bump up the laggard interest rate.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Goodness me that's disappointing. I'm unsure what a wire transfer is, though I'm guessing it's the most expeditious way of electronically transferring money to someone?

A couple of years ago Australia introduced the NPP, New Payments Platform, which means paying bills and transferring money across banks is almost instantaneous. https://nppa.com.au/

Needless to say, it has been great, even though the banks deliberately initially dragged their sorry arses to implement it. They still find ways occasionally to delay payments for some transactions, for example on weekends and public holidays for new or irregular payments, even though computers don't get these holidays

I hope this step by GS is an increment in the lead up to faster payments overall for you guys.

FedNow clearing house is being rolled out to replace ACH and domestic wires. It will be fast and cheap.

 

[Boeingfan]

FedNow clearing house is being rolled out to replace ACH and domestic wires. It will be fast and cheap.

Sounds like a scene from Best Little Whorehouse In Texas 😂

 

[Robert.Walter]

I believe you are correct about Bank of America not currently being a FedNow participant (I don’t see BOA on the list, at least). FedNow is not required, so BOA can simply decline to use it for whatever reasons.

In general fast-evolving banks are often a recipe for trouble, lol. Although in this specific case, the American banking system has been so glacially-slow (compared to many other countries’ banking systems). As you know (with your Australia example) other countries switched to nearly-instant transfers a while ago (some countries switched decades ago).

My British friend calls the American use of antiquated checks “quaint”.

In Switzerland if you get a bill it has a QR code on it. Scan it with your mobile banking app and all info is inputted for the bank to transfer to debtor. Fast simple free. I always choose the 27th of month for all my payments to be made.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Does anyone actually deposit significant amounts into this? Sounds like a nightmare if you ever have to withdraw a lot at one time.

There are so many other options these days. Why even bother?

It’s supremely easy to do.

My mom and sister each have north of 50k$ in. All my moms income comes in in first week of month into checking acct. and she moves all but 200$ to GS. On 20th of month she adds up the total of her 3 credit card balances and moves that from GS to her CU ckg. Her bills all autopay on 27th.

If she writes a check she immediately transfers that from GS to CU. She writes few because she pays almost everything on credit cards then auto pays the balances every month.

She’s 91. Putting all her excess cash into the gs acct yields more overall flexibility than she had with CD’s and money market at the CU. She’s got a simplified overview because now it’s just two accounts svgs at gs and ckg at cu instead of a bunch of sub accounts at CU with differing interest rates.

The 200$ float is a cushion against mistakes but mostly if she wants to withdraw cash from an atm.

And while it isn’t the highest yielding anymore it’s supremely easy for her to use and for her to keep an overview.