Goldman COO Teases New Digital Money Management Product

The chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs said the bank is working on a digital money management tool in an attempt to attract more customers from Main Street, according to a report by Reuters.

“We are developing a digitally empowered mass affluent capability that will leverage our Marcus platform and customer base,” said John Waldron at a bank conference in New York. “We envision an advisor-led and digitally empowered offering tailored to clients across the spectrum of wealth.”

He did not say when the product would be released.

Marcus, the bank’s online banking platform, has had a healthy run, according to CFO Stephen Scherr. Across the U.S. and U.K., he said in mid-April, the bank has logged $46 billion in deposits. “We estimate there are over $4 trillion consumer deposits in the U.S. that are potential customers for online savings accounts, like those offered by Marcus,” he added.

Wealth management will be a component of Marcus as the firm continues to look into introducing new products, and where the market spans $9 trillion held by mass affluent customers in 20 million households. Efforts in that space are in the midpoint of development plans for a “blueprint,” said the CFO at the time.

“For every $10 billion of wholesale funding replaced with deposits, we estimate savings of roughly $100 million in interest expense annually,” Scherr said. “To utilize these deposits, we will continue to migrate businesses, such as foreign exchange, into our bank entities.”

In response to analysts’ questions about strategy and scale, Scherr said Marcus is building scale through “our underwriting algorithms and platforms and in our delivery – not just to scale deposits now, but equally in respect to credit cards.”

Management is targeting growth in the U.S. and U.K. of aggregate retail deposits of $10 billion annually. In terms of technology spend, the company has spent around $1.1 billion across consumer initiatives, Scherr said.