Goldman Sachs' Consumer Division Marcus Launches Savings in Clarity App
*By Tanaya Macheel*
Marcus by Goldman Sachs has made its savings functionality available in Clarity ー the personal finance management app Goldman acquired in Aprilー and is out with a new savings campaign to mark the integration.
The competition for high-yield savings accounts is heating up, and Marcus is courting new, mobile-first customers.
Marcus Goldman Sachs ($GS) has spent more than a year urging a conversation about how much money American consumers leave on the table by not exploring their options for more competitive savings account ー or using them.
"Consumers are starting to become more aware of their options,” said Dustin Cohn, head of brand and marketing communications at Marcus. "Consumers can move the market. If they move their money, they move the market and that’s why competition is heating up. They're realizing there are better options out there.”
According to Cohn, Marcus currently has $28 billion in U.S. savings accounts and more than $3 billion in savings in the UK, where it launched at the end of September. Clarity's 1 million users about quadrupled Marcus' total user base at the time of the acquisition.
According to Marcus-conducted research, 60 percent of U.S. consumers with savings accounts don’t know the annual percentage yield on those accounts ー and 56 percent opened theirs without exploring other options. The top banking institutions — Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — offer APYs ranging from 0.01 percent to 0.06 percent, compared to Marcus’ 2.05 percent, Barclays’ 2.05 percent and HSBC’s 2.01 percent.
Still, with a savings rate of 2.05 percent, a $10,000 deposit would earn just $205 after a year, making the returns more of a nice-to-have than a need-to-have, depending on how aggressive the account holder may be. As Marcus lays the groundwork for its gradual expansion into mortgages, credit cards, and retirement-planning products, high-yield savings accounts provide a marketing tool for Marcus and a way to bring in more consumer deposits.
"Our strategy has been the same from day one: we want to grow prudently, make sure we’re monitoring our risk profile, and over time we’ll grow the business in a healthy and stable way,” Cohn said.
U.S. banks are currently in competition for consumer deposits. The industry is feeling the pressure of widespread deposit displacement as consumers have more choice about where to park their money ー Venmo, the Starbucks app, investing apps, neobanks, cryptocurrency wallets. Banks used to enjoy having all that consumer cash they could then lend out at 20-something percent rates, in some cases.
Bloomberg recently reported Marcus is seeking to pull back on its lending over concerns about the consumer debt market. Its personal loan was the first product Marcus launched with, in 2016. It had originated $1 billion in loans within eight months of launch and has now done more than $4 billion.
“There are a number of different components to Marcus that contribute to the 2020 objective ー unsecured lending in the Marcus platform being one, but equally the value of deposits in that franchise being another,” Marty Chavez, Goldman’s CFO, said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call last month.
Goldman released its Clarity campaign last week.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/goldman-sachs-puts-clarity-money-acquisition-to-work-with-new-offering).
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