Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly had his Apple Card application rejected by Goldman Sachs’s underwriting system in the month’s leading up to the bank card’s debut, according to a new report citing four people familiar with the matter.
The Information claims that as Apple was in the final stages of developing the Apple Card, Apple CEO Tim Cook was refused by the system’s underwriting program, which verifies income, assets, debt and property details in order to decide if an applicant can take credit using a banking card.
Rejections typically happen when the applicant has a history of bad credit. However, in Cook’s case, his rejection was decided on by the high fraud risk associated with being a high-profile CEO.
“Engineers from the Silicon Valley giant and the Wall Street titan were pulling an all-nighter a few months before launch, scrambling to find a solution to a problem that had cropped up: Tim Cook couldn’t get approved for an Apple Card,” the report reads.
Despite the issues, the bank was able to make a one-off exception in time for the services launch, and Cook was manually approved for the Apple Card.
Apple Card is only available in the US. Users can make purchases using their Apple Card with Apple Pay on their iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, or with the optional titanium Apple Card bank card, which features no printed card number or security code, making it the world’s most secure credit card.