Goldman Sachs Proffers Affluent Wealth App

The U.S. investment bank plans to expand its wealth offering to affluent clients. The move represents a further departure from its Wall Street roots.

Goldman Sachs, the best-known investment bank in the world, is pushing deeper into mass-market banking. Four years after launching Marcus for retail clients, the New York-based company is now releasing an app for affluent clients to invest, according to a report by CNBC which cites an internal memo.

A beta version of the app – Marcus Invest – has already started and a wider launch is planned for the first quarter. Employees are the first to test Marcus Invest, which charges an annual fee of 0.15 percent of assets.

The move is emblematic of how Goldman, known as Wall Street’s most voracious trading house, is quietly seeking a reinvention as a trusted wealth manager under CEO David Solomon. Though still minute in comparison to its investment banking activities, the wealth arm has steadily expanded in recent years – including returning to the world’s largest offshore center.

Goldman’s entrance into the mass affluent market was foreshadowed by Marcus, which it launched in 2016 in the U.S. and expanded to the U.K. two years ago. Marcus was so successful in hoovering up British money that Goldman reportedly shut it to new clients this year. The app was meant to be launched in Germany as well, a move which was pushed back due to Brexit as well as the pandemic.

Until recently, Goldman’s wealth managers catered only to the wealthiest of clients and those who also commanded investment banking-grade services (generally from $25 million in assets and up).

Unlike traditional wealth managers, Goldman is making technology a backbone of its efforts to court the wealthy – plowing billions into its own development as well as into deals. It bought United Capital, a tech-backed wealth manager, last May, but has been quietly acquiring consumer banks and wealth managers since 2016.