Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, joined in the ongoing online discussion regarding the gender discrimination accusations by the iPhone maker’s credit card algorithm. This further increased the scrutiny of the newly introduced Apple Card. The initial criticism had been made by David Heinemeier Hansson on Thursday. The entrepreneur made a series of Twitter posts against the Apple Card, stating that the credit limit he received from it was 20 times that of his wife. The titanium credit card was highly anticipated and is part of a broader effort by the company to obtain increased revenue from its services, after heavily relying on iPhone sales for years.
The Apple Card was introduced in partnership with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in August. According to Goldman, an independent valuation is conducted on all applicants of the card, as per their creditworthiness and income. They said that a number of account factors were considered, such as personal debt and personal credit scores before the credit limit was decided. The bank asserted that it was quite possible for two family members to have extremely different credit limitations. They also stated that no decisions were or would be made based on gender.
The web-application framework called Ruby on Rails was created by Hansson. He didn’t disclose any information related specifically to his income or that of his wife, but he did tweet that they both file joint tax return and that she had a higher credit score than him. Wozniak also jumped into this debate on Saturday by sharing a similar experience. He said that as opposed to his wife, his credit limit for the card was 10 times higher. Replying to the original tweet made by Hansson, Wozniak revealed that he and his wife didn’t have any separate credit card accounts, assets or bank accounts.
The Department of Financial Services in New York said that they were going to launch an investigation into the credit card practices employed by Goldman Sachs. The superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services, Linda Lacewell, stated that discrimination against individuals is prohibited under New York law. She said that any method used for determining creditworthiness, such as algorithm, was barred from disparate treatment according to individual characteristics, like creed, age, race, sex, color, sexual orientation and more. She added that they were well-aware that this discrimination in algorithm could also extend to some other areas of financial services as well and were going to investigate it thoroughly.
A spokesman for Goldman Sachs, Andrew Williams, didn’t comment when asked if Hansson had contacted the bank before raising his concerns on Twitter. A response wasn’t made because matters involving individual customers are not discussed publicly by the bank. The Apple Card is the first ever credit card that has been launched by the bank. More products are being offered to customers by the Wall Street investment bank via its Marcus online bank, which include savings accounts and personal loans.
Apple has yet to make any statement or comment regarding this discrimination.
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