Goldman Sachs' Marcus Platform Could Have Lots of Growth Ahead

Goldman Sachs' (GS -0.23%) Marcus platform recently announced that it is developing a wealth management offering to complement the existing personal lending and savings products. While there has been lots of speculation about future expansion into credit cards, mortgages, and other products, the Marcus team feels that there's still a ton of untapped growth potential in its current business.

In this Industry Focus: Financials clip, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, discuss Marcus' growth strategies and what it could mean to the company.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Oct. 29, 2018.

Jason Moser: Goldman Sachs Marcus. Apparently, they are looking to try to help consumers and/ or businesses manage debt a little bit more wisely. You had a chance to take a look at this is Marcus offering that they have, learn more about it. Tell me your takeaways with Goldman Sachs and Marcus.

Matt Frankel: The wealth management offering that they're coming up with is still very much a work in progress. I spoke with one of their executives. He said that it's not just going to be a robo advising platform. It's definitely going to have some sort of active component. Then I asked him more in depth where Marcus is going. They had mentioned a bunch of possible growth avenues -- say, mortgages, auto loans, checking accounts, things like that. He said that even though they have the capital and the ability to grow as fast as they want to, they're still just going to focus on their core businesses that they've had so far. Those are online savings accounts and personal lending, both of which they feel have tremendous runway still. They shared a couple of stats with me. 70% of people in a recent survey don't know that you can pay off credit cards with personal loan proceeds. About 60% don't know what their savings account interest rate is. They see a big opportunity with just educating the consumer and building up the products that they already offer, and they're going to cautiously roll out new products as they see fit. Wealth management is just the next avenue.

While other things like mortgages, credit cards, things like that, could be coming in the future, I wouldn't count on seeing any kind of accelerated timetable. You have to realize that Marcus itself is just about two years old. As I was talking to them, on that day, they were celebrating two years since their first personal loan was issued. They're still a very young platform, and are still trying to establish their core competencies, and aren't really inclined to grow that fast.

Moser: I think I can get by that. One thing that always takes me a bit by surprise is, when you look at the bigger picture, a lot of people out there don't understand how finance works. From something as basic as a checking or savings account to taking out a loan, or even what your taxes are going toward, how much you pay in taxes, filing taxes every year. I've done a lot of research on this through the years. I had the good fortune back in 2012, to interview then-Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. He agreed, the biggest hurdle to clear in regard to individuals in the United States in finance, is simple education. States aren't doing a good enough job of it through school systems. It's not something where you can just say, "We're going to implement this nationwide financial literacy program. That'll take care of it." My observation as a father and through what we do as employees here is, it really all does start in the home. The biggest problem there is when you're a parent you don't know enough to teach your child or children about those basic financial concepts, then you're really stuck. It certainly sounds like Marcus is leaning more toward the education side, and helping people make smarter decisions. I think we can all get behind that.