Goldman moves closer to offering Marcus checking accounts

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is one step closer to offering checking accounts for Main Street consumers.

The Wall Street giant will work with the digital-payments upstart Marqeta on the offering, which it will debut later this year, according to a statement Thursday. Marqeta Chief Executive Jason Gardner said Goldman plans to use the firm’s technology to issue debit cards into mobile wallets, and for offerings that provide customers with real-time access to spending data.

“You can instantly issue those cards into Apple Pay or Google Pay and it instantly gives consumers access to their funds,” he said in an interview.

Goldman Sachs so far has been fairly tight-lipped on what the checking account might look like. In October, Visa Inc. announced it had won a deal to be the network for the digital account’s inaugural debit card.

“Integrating with Marqeta’s platform will allow us to create a personalized, feature-rich banking experience for our checking customers,” Omer Ismail, global head of the consumer business at Goldman Sachs, said in the statement.

For years, Goldman has been building out its consumer arm, which goes by the name of Marcus. Last year, the bank said it was seeking to gather $125 billion in consumer deposits with a goal of $700 million in pretax income from the business.

[More: Goldman Sachs primed to launch new robo-adviser Marcus Invest]

Marqeta works with some of the world’s largest companies, promising speedier time to market for new credit cards and better controls on payments. The firm already counts Goldman Sachs as one of its early backers, and the bank’s underwriters are working with Marqeta on an upcoming initial public offering that could value the company at about $10 billion, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg last year.

“What’s interesting about Goldman Sachs is they’re a very storied, longstanding bank and they’ve come out with Marcus, which has done well in a relatively short period of time,” Gardner said. “This is just another true validation of our technology.”

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