Goldman Unleashes Digital Investment Platform for the Masses

Marcus Invest is available for individual, joint and IRA accounts and is integrated into the Goldman by Marcus consumer banking app, which offers relatively high-yielding savings accounts, unsecured personal loans and budgeting software, as well as an Apple credit card.

With its latest launch, Goldman Sachs will compete directly with digital platforms of retail-focused giants including Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity and Merrill Edge and with the independent robo-advisors Betterment and Wealthfront.

Marcus Invest's 0.35% fee is the same as the fees charged by Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo but slightly higher than the 0.25% fee for the digital-only services of Wealthfront and Betterment and 0.20% all-in cost charged by Vanguard Digital Advisor, according to David Goldstone, manager of research and Analytics at Backend Benchmarking, which publishes The Robo Report. Fidelity Go and JPMorgan Chase You Invest charge 0.35% for everything, including expense ratios for ETFs.

When Goldman Sachs announced its plans for Marcus in December, a spokesman told ThinkAdvisor that the new service would help the firm "attract new customers and deepen relationships within its consumer and Ayco ecosystems," the latter referring to its employer-based financial counseling investment management service.

Marcus Invest could be conceivably the first stop for investors who ultimately move on to Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management — the renamed United Capital that Goldman acquired in May 2019 headed by Joe Duran, United Capital's former CEO — or to Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management.