In what would be a big step in the Wall Street bank’s retreat from consumer lending, Barclays is the leading candidate to take over issuance of the credit cards, which have about $2b of balances outstanding, and could strike a deal with GM by this summer.
Several big issues still need to be sorted out before a deal with Barclays can be reached. Among the biggest is the price Barclays will pay. People who have reviewed financial details of the GM program say the cards Goldman signed up new customers for have higher rates of missed payments than the ones the bank received when the portfolio was transferred from its prior issuer, Capital One.