Goldman Sachs Makes Much Progress over Plans

David Solomon, the president of bank Goldman Sachs, stated that the bank is making much progress on its plan to increase revenue by $5 billion over three years.

“At this point in time, we are on track or ahead of every metric that we look at along that $5 billion plan,” said Solomon on Thursday during a conference in New York. “That plan is far from our ambition. We continue to look to broaden our core businesses, expand our franchise and find ways to enhance our growth and diversity of revenue streams.”

Goldman Sachs announced the $5-billion plan last September, following its struggle in recent years with a decline in fixed-income trading. The firm is the considered to be the most reliant on trading revenue among the big US investment banks. Its push involves gaining more clients beyond the hedge funds, which were its historic strength.

A part of the initiative involves a new emphasis on consumer retail via its Marcus brand.

“We’re now building a digital consumer finance platform,” said Solomon. “We think digital finance is at a very, very interesting pivot point. And we think we’re in a position where we can be part of the disruption.”

The consumer business provides savings accounts and loans. However, it could eventually spread to credit cards, mortgages, automobile loans, and life and health insurance through Marcus, based on a bank representation.

Marcus has 1.5 million customers. It has already made $3 billion in loans, while sporting a total of $22 billion in deposits, according to Solomon.

Solomon took the helm as the sole president of the bank last March. He is slated as the potential successors of the bank’s chief executive officer, Lloyd Blankfein.

When it comes to the bank’s plans for trading crytocurrencies, such as bitcoin, Solomon stated that they haven’t yet gone further than clearing futures for clients.

“We’re extremely cautious about the space, but very open form perspective about what our clients need,” said Solomon.

Goldman Sachs Banker Charged with Insider Trading

Meanwhile, a banker from Goldman Sachs has been charged with insider trading. A seven-count criminal complaint was unsealed on Thursday, and charged Woojae “Steve” Jung with trading with an unnamed co-conspirator on material non-public information, which he accessed as he worked at an investment bank with offices in New York and San Francisco.

The complaint didn’t disclose the bank and did not drop any name, but the only FINRA record for a Woojae Jung lists Goldman Sachs as the employer. Meanwhile, a LinkedIn profile page for a Steve Woojae Jung shows that she is vice president, investment banking, at Goldman Sachs.

“We are aware of the situation regarding Mr. Jung and are cooperating with legal authorities on the matter,” said Goldman in a statement. It also said that it was putting Jung on leave.

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