After a series of tweets blasting Apple’s new credit card for alleged gender discrimination, New York’s Department of Financial Services is launching an investigation. The Apple Card was launched in partnership with Goldman Sachs earlier this year. It uses an algorithm to assign credit limits, but many online pointed out it may favor men over women.
Goldman Sachs has issued a new statement on the matter, saying: “we have not and never will make decisions based on factors like gender. In fact, we do not know your gender or marital status during the Apple Card application process,” the statement reads. “Some of our customers have told us they received lower credit lines than they expected. In many cases, this is because their existing credit cards are supplemental cards under their spouse’s primary account — which may result in the applicant having limited personal credit history. Apple Card’s credit decision process is not aware of your marital status at the time of the application.”
In a series of tweets that went viral, David Heinemeier Hansson, a Danish software engineer, wrote that he received a credit limit from the Apple card that was 20 times higher than his wife – even though his wife’s credit score was higher than his. The Apple Card’s customer support blamed their algorithm. Scores of people on Twitter responded to Hansson’s tweets saying the same thing happened to them — including Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak.
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