Goldman Sachs signals partial retreat from consumer banking

NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs no longer wants to be the bank for everyone.

The storied investment bank spent eight years attempting to expand its business beyond corporations and the wealthy. But in recent months, Goldman has signaled a partial retreat from those efforts by scrapping plans for a checking account broadly available to the public and mothballing its personal loan business. A popular savings account and a credit card business survive for now.

Last week, the bank disclosed that it had accumulated $3 billion in losses in its consumer banking franchise since 2020, mostly money set aside to cover potential loan losses in its Marcus personal loan business. Bank regulators are reportedly looking into whether the consumer business had proper safeguards in place as it grew larger.

The retreat in consumer banking comes as Goldman tries to refocus on its roots: advising corporations on deals, investing, and trading, and servicing the well-to-do. The firm’s revenue from investment banking, trading and wealth management made up two thirds of total revenue last year.

“I think it became clear to us early in 2022 that we were doing too much, it was affecting our execution,” said David Solomon, Goldman’s chairman and CEO, in a call with analysts when the bank reported its results earlier this month.

Goldman’s push into consumer banking was one of the biggest changes in the firm’s 154-year history. The investment bank had to legally convert itself into a bank holding company in 2008 during the financial crisis to get access to the Federal Reserve’s emergency funding operations. That led to jokes within the industry that the Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs was going to issue something as commonplace as an ATM card.

Peter Morgan/Associated Press Lights are on at the world headquarters of Goldman Sachs in New York on Tuesday. The storied investment bank has recently signaled a partial retreat from its efforts to build up a consumer banking business.