1. MARCUS BY
GOLDMAN SACHS
GROUP - 05
ANU BHARTI PGP12074
ANUSHKA PATIDAR PGP12082
CHANCHAL PRIYA PGP12099
FATHIMA HEERA F PGP12097
NUMAN AHMAD PGP12112
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2. COMPANY
Goldman Sachs, an investment banking company made a strategic
decision to increase its revenues by expanding into the consumer
banking market with a digital-only-offering.
Marcus made its debut into the world of consumer banking , offering
unsecured personal loans for the mass market. This move caused a
cultural shift as well as product shift as Goldman Sachs served only
businesses and the wealthiest of individuals.
The launch of unsecured personal loans in 2016 ,yielded high deposits
in 2017 and a credit card partnership with Apple in 2019.
While Marcus has grown from a single product offering to multi-
product , Goldman’s vision was significantly more expansive . It
expected Marcus to exceed the $1 billion in revenue by 2020.
The dilemma is whether to pursue the additional opportunities that
waited for Marcus to diversify into consumer finance products or to
pause for the performance to catch up with growth .
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OVERVIEW
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3. In mid-2014, Goldman Sachs managers gathered to discuss
expansion ideas
With total revenues barely over $34 billion, topline
growth had stagnated
Goldman didn't recover from a 60% decline in securities
trading income since 2009.
To overcome this, Rich Friedman proposed using a
banking licence to create additional revenue sources
Friedman agreed to provide a team of 5 employees from
the Merchant Banking Division Team to study customer
alternatives under "Project Mosaic" with Market Research.
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WHY MARCUS CAME INTO
EXISTANCE
Business
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4. TIMELINE
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EXPLORATION
Aug'14- May'15
Creating a team,
defining a product
May'15 to Nov'15
The Build phase
Nov'15 - Oct'16
Becoming a
multiproduct platform
Oct'16 - Dec'17
Operating the
multiproduct platform
Jan'18 - Sep'19
5. VALUE CREATION
Marcus addressed the spending, borrowing and saving
needs for millions of customers and help them take
control of their financial lives through products that
are simple, transparent, valuable, personal and secure.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Quality first, then cost, and finally speed
Unsecured personal loan
Fixed rate installment loans in amounts ranging from
$3000 to $30000
Proposed no fees ever
Allow customers to defer one payment after every 12
on-time payments
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6. MARCUS'S GROWTH
Marcus launched online lending on
October 13, 2016
Initial code signed by members of Marcus
team and added a distribution channel in
each 5 succeeding months
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GE Capital’s online savings platform
acquisition bought over $8.7 Billion deposits
Parallel effort to integrate deposits offering
into Marcus platform
2017, 3 new opportunities emerged
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7. WHAT ARE THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF HOW GOLDMAN STRUCTURED AND
SUPPORTED PROJECT MOSAIC?
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
A mixture of senior talent from
both Goldman, financial services
company and consumer tech
companies
Consumer and SME markets had
large consumer bases and they
can target a more niche market
and still generate revenues
Strong competitive advantages
against Fintech firms as they
lacked scale, brand recognition
and capital access
A company with no prior
experience in retail banking
With a focus solely on customer
experience, some decisions could
be risky for the company though
beneficial to the consumers
Though a very ambitious and
successful project, the company
underwent rushed expansions
thus utilizing lots of capital
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8. Building a star team not star athletes
Wanted people who would facilitate an environment in
which the best idea wins
Hiring organization fit candidates
Included people from Goldman, Financial services firms and
consumer facing tech firms
Operating model to enable future growth and product
expansion
For team building they mainly focused on hiring senior talent,
expanding team and operating model. The approach they
followed focused on
On the bases of above mentioned points we would grade it as
good.
HOW WOULD YOU GRADE GOLDMAN’S APPROACH TO
BUILDING AND STAFFING THE MARCUS TEAM?
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9. Which is the better bet: to pause to allow performance to catch
up with growth or to seize the opportunities that beckon Marcus
to diversify into consumer finance products?
Seize the opportunity
Achieving long term vision
Untapped market
8
New opportunitties in credit card amrket
