Goldman Sachs chief executive officer David Solomon said the bank would not offer crypto-related products alongside its basic set of financial services. Solomon’s statement comes after Goldman Sachs released its earnings report for the first quarter this year.
While Goldman Sachs previously announced its intent to offer Bitcoin as an investment instrument to its wealth management clientele, which put the rest of Wall Street on notice, through its digital banking platform Marcus Invest, the long-standing bank reaffirmed its commitment to basic banking services after detailing its Q1 earnings.
“We have a plan at the moment to build a digital bank that’s offering an array of integrated basic services in a completely digital, frictionless platform,” said Solomon during the Wednesday earnings call. He emphasized that the bank’s commitment to this endeavor and specified that offering a crypto wallet is not the focus.
Goldman Sachs profits up in Q1
During the first quarter of the year, Goldman Sachs’ profits soared to $6.84 billion, charting $17.7 billion in total revenue. The bank’s current figures are a huge leap when compared to last year’s $8.7 billion revenue with $1.2 billion in profits.
Goldman Sach’s revenue surge is attributed to its various new IPOs, stock sales that amounted to more than $1.6 billion, and special-purpose acquisition outfits.
“The increase in financial advisory net revenues reflected a significant increase in completed mergers and acquisitions transactions,” Goldman Sachs detailed during the earnings report after noting that the significantly higher net revenue is driven by the strength of its IPO activities.
Goldman Sachs’ Digital Banking Platform
Goldman announced its plans for a proprietary digital investment platform, Marcus Invest, midway through February 2021. According to Goldman Sachs, the low-cost platform will allocate wealth based on models seen fit by the bank’s investment strategy arm.
Marcus Invest is anticipated to be built atop of the bank’s existing consumer-app Marcus, which provides retail clients access to their savings accounts and personal loans.
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