Goldman Sachs holds talks about entering Irish banking market

Bank is 'exploring our options for future growth areas'

Goldman Sachs has held talks with regulators about an Irish launch of its retail bank Marcus, a move that could give the Wall Street giant access to tens of billions of euro in deposits. Picture: AP Photo/Richard Drew

Goldman Sachs has held talks with regulators about an Irish launch of its retail bank Marcus, a move that could give the Wall Street giant access to tens of billions of euro in deposits.

The early-stage discussions took place in recent months and Ireland was one of the locations being considered for widening Marcus’ footprint, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Another potential geography is Germany, where Goldman had intended to launch in 2019, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. No decision has been taken yet, they added.

“We remain focused on that business in the US and UK and are exploring our options for future growth areas,” a representative for Goldman said, adding the platform offers “competitive options for customers looking to grow their savings”. 

The Central Bank of Ireland said it won’t confirm or comment on individual applications.

Plans to expand in Europe would be a significant step for Goldman’s consumer business, which had racked up billions in losses and underwent a revamp after 2022. Now, the deposit-gathering unit remains the only bright point, with its ability to draw customers with the more basic promise of offering higher savings rates than most of its competitors.

Ireland is seen as an attractive addition to Marcus, the people said, because competition has been whittled down after the financial crisis triggered an exodus of foreign players including NatWest Group, KBC and Danske Bank.

That has resulted in household deposits in Ireland earning just an average 0.13% in interest, compared with the 0.32% in the euro area, according to Central Bank of Ireland data. The low offerings have prompted scrutiny from politicians about banks’ failure to pass on rate increases.

In the UK, where it started operations in 2018, Marcus uses an online-only savings product as a tool to diversify the funding for its trading and lending across Europe, businesses that were traditionally supported by money raised in the capital markets.

Though it offers an interest rate of 4.3% to British depositors, its growth there has been constrained by a £25bn (€29bn) cap on how much it can raise before it can no longer use savers’ cash to fund its investment bank, under rules known as ring-fencing. There have been some calls for those ring-fencing rules to be abolished completely. Should they be scrapped, Goldman could revisit its plans for Ireland and Germany, one of the people said, since sourcing deposits in other markets would be less attractive if it could raise unlimited money in the UK.

Goldman launched Marcus in the US in 2016 as part of a push into consumer banking that also spawned a credit card partnership with Apple and a consumer lending drive. The investment-banking giant had pinned its hopes of retail domination on its technology edge and the ability to be more nimble to sweep past more deeply entrenched competitors. However, it didn’t pan out that way.

Instead, amid mounting losses, it was forced to reverse gear and abandon most of its retail-banking ambitions in 2022. The Marcus-branded direct-to-customers deposits unit was shifted into the asset- and wealth-management business under Marc Nachmann. Deposit gathering still remains an important source of cash for the bank, which can afford to offer higher rates as it still comes out to be a cheaper source of funding for its operations than other options in borrowing markets.

Bloomberg