Cost, Tech Hurdles May Slow Goldman’s Checking Rollout

Goldman Sachs is reportedly considering further delay of its planned online checking accounts for consumers.

The company’s consumer banking arm has struggled for a year to develop the accounts and is seeing growing losses in its online platform called Marcus, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Aug. 24).

Now, leaders at Goldman are considering opening the platform to only a limited number of customers, saving the company the expense of marketing a new offering to all potential retail customers until 2023, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the discussions over the next steps and added a Goldman spokesman declined to comment.

Marcus now offers savings accounts and had planned to add the checking account by 2021, but the product’s developers have been unable to overcome technical hurdles, per the report.

Goldman CEO David Solomon said during the company’s quarterly earnings call in July that inflation, geopolitics and other factors are having a material impact on markets and on confidence.

Read more: Goldman Consumer Banking Revenues Grow 25% as Loss Reserves Surge 497%

“There’s no question that economic conditions are tightening to try to control inflation — and this will have an impact on corporate confidence and consumer activity in the economy,” Solomon said at the time.

He also noted the company has been “building a business from scratch” in the consumer segment.

During Goldman’s previous earnings call, held in April, Solomon said the company was on track to launch checking services more broadly to its clients later this year.

See more: Goldman Puts Legacy Lenders on Watch With Plan to Offer Digital Checking Accounts

“We’re already piloting this internally,” Solomon said at the time. “And [checking] will be an important piece of the product roadmap for us.”