NEW YORK–After years of planning, Goldman Sachs’ new online, retail lending platform is now up and running.
Called Marcus.com (named after Marcus Goldman), it offers unsecured loans of up to $30,000 to consumers to refinance their credit card debt or pay for a household project.
According to the New York Times, the new site takes an “unusually casual tone for Goldman” as it tries to lure in customers.
“Debt happens — and it can happen to anyone. We created Marcus to help you better manage it,” the site says. “No jargon. No tricks. Just straight talk.”
Initially, applications are being limited to people who get a code from Goldman in the mail. Goldman said this week that it would send the code to millions of people, the Times reported. The company is focusing on customers with a credit score above 660, so-called prime credit.
As CUToday.info reported here, Marcus is a significant departure for Goldman, an elite Wall Street firm that has traditionally avoided consumer-oriented banking, focusing instead on government and corporate clients.
Since the financial crisis, however, Goldman has viewed consumer banking as a new opportunity that can help the firm overcome some of the regulatory and reputational difficulties it has faced in recent years.
“Marcus is the centerpiece of Goldman’s push into consumer banking, and the firm has put significant resources into designing and planning the site and the products it will offer,” the Times reported.
In April of this year Goldman also began offering more traditional retail savings accounts through GS Bank, an online-only operation.