Goldman Sachs is beginning the year with a new push toward sharing its exclusive wealth management prowess with the masses. In an email revealed at the end of 2020, Goldman Sachs shared to employees that it is testing a wealth management app catering to clientele outside of the bank’s usual $25 million+ investors.
Named Marcus Invest, the wall street heavyweight’s digital service was tested towards the end of last year in a beta phase to employees with an intended roll out of early this year. For the first time, consumers will be able to access Goldman Sachs’ exclusive and coveted know-how by opening an account with as little as $1000. According to CNBC, who received exclusive access to the internal email, the service will make available some knowledge previously only available to the global elite including Goldman’s smart-beat ETFs and asset allocation models. The product’s mass market release will come after delays due to the coronavirus pandemic preventing its availability in 2020.
Users will be able to select among three model portfolios composed of ETFs from Goldman and external providers. Other features include a personal finance tool called Marcus Insights housed within the Marcus app and online portal. Marcus Invest leverages knowledge gained from Goldman’s $100 million purchase of Clarity Money, a personal finance tool created by Adam Dell (brother of PC billionaire Michael Dell). The platform will provide clients with a top-level view of their accounts with multiple institutions.
“As we prepare for the public launch in Q1 2021, we are pleased to invite consumer and wealth management colleagues to provide early feedback on Marcus Invest through our beta program,” Goldman said in an internal memo, according to CNBC. The memo was signed by Tucker York and Stephanie Cohen, co-heads of the consumer and wealth management division.
So far it is known that employees who sign on to the digital service will pay an annual management fee of 0.15% as revealed in the memo. It is not known, however, what the management fee will be to the public, but speculation suggests the fee will be comparative to competing services such as Morgan Stanley’s 0.35% or Bank of America’s Merrill division at 0.45%.
The company will also be launching a robot advisor that will enable the flexibility for clients with restricted funds to invest. “We have a lot of clients who have kids and are in relationships with people who don’t have their [level of] assets,” said Duran. He said the typical account size is expected to be higher than other robo advisers such as Betterment, which has no minimum investment amount, “because of the kind of people the [Goldman] brand attracts” shared Joe Duran, founder of the United Capital wealth management firm that Goldman acquired earlier this year.
This service is the latest in Goldman’s moves to diversify its income beyond trading and investment banking among ultra-wealthy investors.
