Displaying items by tag: robo advisor

Goldman Sachs is acquiring NextCapital, a quickly growing fintech company that provides digital advice targeting corporate retirement plans. This is one of Goldman’s five largest asset management acquisitions and will aim to develop relationships with corporate employees. This will also provide a stable source of revenue which plays nicely with its more traditional trading activities. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are both ratcheting up acquisitions in fintech that offer better relationships with corporate employees. Next Capital is a little over eight years old and has raised $85 million in its most recent funding round.

Finsum: This could form the foundation of a relationship between many employees in the US and GS providing an avenue for future clients.

President Joe Biden is expected to nominate Professor Saule Omarova for the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the leadership positions in banking oversight and regulation. Omarova is currently teaching at Cornell University Law School and is a critic of the role fintech is playing in the current financial system, all the way from cryptocurrency to robo-advising. Additionally, she believes regulation should be tightened across the board in banking, calling for a larger role in government supervision. She has also advocated for restructuring the Fed and having them provide consumer bank accounts. This is only the beginning of the journey as both fintech and the banking sector will lobby hard to make sure she doesn’t get confirmed for her position.

FINSUM: This would be a drastic leadership change in regulation compared to the relatively hands-off approach fintech has benefited from so far. The suggested changes to the Fed would pump shockwaves through the financial system.

(New York)

One of the first big changes under new Goldman CEO David Solomon is becoming clear. That first major move is in wealth management, where Goldman is attempting to push much more broadly into the market. The bank plans to launch a robo advisor to get people with as little as $5,000 to invest to join its offering. Goldman has traditionally gone after very wealthy clients ($10m+), so this is a major change of pace for the the bank and is more in line with its recent increased focus on mass market savings products. A senior figure at Goldman explained “It’s a pipeline for future clients” to allow them to “experience the Goldman Sachs’ way”.

FINSUM: Goldman seems to believe it has stretched the high end of its market (big corps and UHNWIs) as far as it could go, and this is just the next logical area for growth. The challenge here is that we don’t think the Goldman name has the same cache with the mass market that it does with the HNW market.