NY regulators investigating Apple Card after viral complaint of sexism

Enlarge / A dashboard built into iOS on iPhones lets you manage your card. (credit: Apple)

Apple launched its own branded MasterCard nationwide in August. In the months since, the digital-first payment system has won some fans for its easy integration into the iPhone and Apple ecosystem, and it more or less seemed to work about as well as any other credit card. Now, however, financial-services regulators want to know what's going on under the hood amid accusations that the software determining the card's terms has a sexist slant.

What happened?

Software developer and entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson took to Twitter late last week to complain about his wife Jamie Heinemeier Hansson's experience with AppleCard.

"The @AppleCard is such a fucking sexist program," his lengthy thread began. "My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time. Yet Apple's black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does. No appeals work."

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