Visa has offered Apple a sum of almost $100m to take over its bankcard partnership - currently held by Mastercard - according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources close to the matter.

This ambitious offer aims to secure the Apple Card contract, with an upfront payment usually reserved for the largest card programs. Visa declined to comment to Reuters.

American Express is also in the running to replace Mastercard and has ambitions to become both card issuer and payment network, the WSJ says.

Launched in 2019, the Apple Card had been developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs as issuer and Mastercard as network. According to information published in November 2023, this partnership came to an end.

Since then, several financial institutions have been interested in the matter. According to Reuters reports in January, Apple has entered into discussions with Barclays and Synchrony Financial to consider a new partnership. JPMorgan Chase has also been in talks with Apple since last year.

Goldman Sachs, which entered retail banking almost ten years ago to diversify its revenue streams beyond its traditional brokerage and investment banking activities, has finally decided to step back from this segment. By the end of 2022, the bank had begun to withdraw from this segment, having set aside several billion dollars in provisions to cover potential losses in its retail activities.

Note that we published an analysis of these companies earlier this year, providing an update on the two fairly similar issues.