Goldman Sachs Cutting Loose its Marcus Loan Portfolio, Is Going Hard on Savings Accounts

Goldman Sachs followed the windup of its Marcus online lending business by taking a $470M loss on a partial sale of its loan portfolio and transfer of the rest of it to held for sale, the company revealed. Marcus still exists for the bank as an online savings account brand, which it has found very adept at acquiring deposits.

Goldman’s actions with Marcus were explained in January when CEO David Solomon said “…we tried to do too much too quickly.”

When Marcus first launched, Goldman Sachs was widely viewed as trying to compete with LendingClub in the online lending space. Both companies are now more famously known to consumers for another product, a high yield savings account. Marcus offers 3.9% APY on savings right now while LendingClub offers 4.25% APY. Despite LendingClub’s perceived edge here, Goldman Sachs announced yesterday that it was teaming up with Apple to offer an Apple Card savings account that pays 4.15% APY.