Goldman Moves Digital Bank to Wealth Unit in Expansion Bid

The shift highlights Goldman’s evolving strategy with the customers it targets through its wealth-management business. The firm is increasingly moving beyond ultra-high-net worth individuals and widening the net to attract new clients.

With the move, the firm is disbanding the consumer and commercial banking division that was set up under Stephen Scherr. A vacuum at the top of the unit was created after Scherr was promoted to chief financial officer.

The Marcus leadership will now report to Eric Lane and Tim O’Neill, the two heads of the investment-management division, which now brings in almost 20 percent of Goldman’s revenue. The group is split across asset-management and handling the finances of the wealthy.

Goldman Sachs’s private-banking arm has long been dwarfed by units at firms including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which Goldman has chalked up to its focus on the super rich. But a new push is afoot to take the Marcus brand to the mass market, and new offerings could help reel in a broader swath of consumers.

The primary business for two-year-old Marcus so far has been online personal loans with that lending book at about $4 billion at the end of last quarter. The firm has shown signs of slowing down its pace of growth of that segment in response to concerns about the credit cycle.