Goldman Stumbles on Path to Main Street With Apple Card Flap
- Bias charges bring probes and test for bank’s new venture
- Wall Street giant working to diversify with consumer lending
Lending money to ordinary Americans, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says, represents a major part of the future of a Wall Street titan more accustomed to dealing with the world’s biggest corporations. But a series of perceived missteps over its flagship Apple Card has introduced the first big test of whether the investment bank is ready for Main Street.
Lawmakers and regulators are investigating whether the computer models that Goldman uses to determine who gets the card and their credit limits are unintentionally cementing decades of gender bias. The issue brought the type of nightly news attention the bank hasn’t faced in years, after a prominent tech entrepreneur set off a social media storm with a viral tweet saying he and his wife were treated unequally.