Dive Brief:

• Goldman Sachs is selling its Marcus Invest digital investing accounts to Betterment, the fintech announced Monday in a press release.
• Accounts are expected to transition to Betterment around June 29, the fintech said. However, customers can opt out by June 20, Goldman said on its Marcus website.
• The deal value was not made public, though it is not expected to be material, according to Bloomberg.

Dive Insight:

The sale marks the latest step in the dismantling of Goldman’s once-heavy bet on consumer banking. Goldman last month closed its sale of installment lender GreenSky to an investor group led by Sixth Street.

Marcus Invest launched in February 2021, in large part as an appeal to retail investors, who could open accounts with as little as $1,000. Early on, the robo-advisory platform was hailed for its potential in cross-sales. More than 10,000 Marcus Invest accounts opened in the first few months — most by existing Goldman clients, Bloomberg reported. But as Goldman pivoted away from its consumer business, focus on Marcus Invest dwindled.

“We thought we could be competitive,” Goldman President John Waldron said at an event last week, according to Bloomberg. “I think we learned it’s a lot harder than we thought it was.”

Goldman, however, reaffirmed its commitment to Marcus’s deposits and savings accounts, where the bank holds balances of more than $110 billion.

Betterment will acquire Marcus Invest accounts and assets under management, but not any of the bank’s other accounts, technology, employees nor operations, according to Monday’s release.  

“This acquisition further cements our leadership in the digital investing space,” Betterment CEO Sarah Levy said. “We are excited to welcome these customers to Betterment, where our scalable technology platform will continue to support them on their investing journeys.”

Marcus Invest users are set to join a platform that serves an 850,000-person customer base and manages more than $45 billion in assets, Betterment said. The fintech has roughly doubled its assets since late 2020, when Levy became CEO, Bloomberg reported.

“We … wanted to find a great home for [Marcus Invest] customers,” said Marcos Rosenberg, Goldman’s global head of Marcus Deposits and Marcus Invest. “Betterment was the obvious choice for those accounts as we share a deep commitment to customer satisfaction.”