In 2021, Goldman Sachs was building an independent consumer-banking segment around its Marcus brand. Over the next three years it wound that effort down almost entirely, footnote by footnote, while doubling down on its traditional strengths — and by 2026, record profits, helped by an AI infrastructure investment boom, had filled the gap.
The story
2021: a different company
Open the 2021 10-K and you see a different Goldman Sachs. The company had just created an independent "Consumer & Wealth Management" segment, pushing personal loans, credit cards and deposits under the Marcus brand, and the filing confidently stated it had "expanded and intend[ed] to continue to expand the product and geographic scope of our offerings of credit products to consumers." Goldman's investment-banking DNA was, at the time, mid-experiment with grafting on an entirely different business: consumer finance.
2022: a quiet reversal, buried in a footnote
With no fanfare, the FY2022 10-K slips in a single new sentence:
The segment name drops "Consumer" entirely and becomes the colorless "Platform Solutions." Companies rarely announce their own mistakes in a headline — usually it starts, as it did here, with a single footnote.
2023: the public confession, and a messy cleanup
CEO David Solomon made it official at a February 2023 Investor Day. On the Q3 2023 call, he put it plainly: "earlier this year at our Investor Day, we laid out a clear objective to narrow our strategic focus." That year the company announced the sale of GreenSky, sold off most of the Marcus loan portfolio, and divested its Personal Financial Management unit. But the exit wasn't clean — on the Q1 FY2024 call, an analyst asked directly why GreenSky and GM-card wind-down costs were still showing up and why Platform Solutions had posted another $117 million quarterly loss. Saying "we've narrowed our focus" while the numbers were still bleeding made this the most awkward stretch of the whole retreat.
2025: a dedicated section, and the final pieces sold off
The FY2025 10-K added, for the first time, a section literally titled "Narrowing our Focus on Consumer-Related Activities." The Apple Card portfolio moved to held-for-sale, and the GM credit card program was transferred to another issuer. Platform Solutions — once 4.4% of total revenue in 2023 — had shrunk to just 0.3% of revenue by 2025, effectively a rounding error. Interestingly, while the company was shrinking one business, its original strength — asset and wealth management — was beating its own targets ahead of schedule: a $2B alternatives-management-fee target set for 2024 was cleared back in 2023, and a five-year, $22B-plus fundraising target was hit a year early. Meanwhile the ROE target (14-16%) and efficiency-ratio target (about 60%) it had set for itself badly missed in 2023, only reached the low end (15.0% ROE) by 2025, and the efficiency ratio (64.4%) is still above target as of mid-2026.
Evidence: what the filings say
"We will expand" becomes "we are stopping"
An expansion promise reversed into a stop-new-lending announcement within a single year. The segment name changed too, from "Consumer & Wealth Management" to the consumer-free "Platform Solutions."
A dedicated section appears for the retreat
Before FY2023, there was no section with this title at all — GreenSky and Marcus material was scattered through the business description. Starting with the FY2024 10-K (filed Feb 2025), it gets a formal heading: "Regulatory and Other Matters — Other Matters — Narrowing our Focus on Consumer-Related Activities." By FY2024, the retreat had become a standing disclosure item rather than a one-off event.
Source: 10-K FY2024.
AI shows up as a risk factor for the first time in FY2023
The FY2022 10-K has no AI-specific risk factor at all. The FY2023 10-K adds one: "The development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) present risks and challenges that may adversely impact our business." By FY2025, the language goes further, tying the risk explicitly to the company's own "OneGS 3.0" initiative and its growing internal use of AI — no longer a theoretical risk, but one tied to how the company actually operates now.
Source: 10-K FY2023, 10-K FY2025.
Earnings-call tone, 12 quarters
A qualitative score (1-10), based on confidence language and hedging in prepared remarks — a relative trend, not a quantitative measure.
| Quarter | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2023 | 5.0 | Focus-narrowing just announced; heavy macro hedging |
| Q4 2023 | 6.5 | |
| Q1 2024 | 6.0 | Analyst presses on the $117M Platform Solutions loss |
| Q2 2024 | 7.5 | |
| Q3 2024 | 7.5 | |
| Q4 2024 | 8.0 | |
| Q1 2025 | 6.0 | Tariff-driven trade-war fears, "recession risk has increased" |
| Q2 2025 | 7.5 | "Remarkably resilient" — tariff shock absorbed, record results resume |
| Q3 2025 | 8.0 | |
| Q4 2025 | 8.5 | |
| Q1 2026 | 9.0 | |
| Q2 2026 | 9.5 | Best quarter since the year began, ROE 23.5%, "record" repeated throughout |
Guidance scorecard
| Target | Promised | Actual | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternatives management fees (by 2024) | $2B/year | Already $2.1B in 2023 | Beat — a year early |
| AWM total management fees (by 2024) | $10B/year | $9.5B (2023) → $10B+ (2024) | Met on schedule |
| 5-year alternatives fundraising | $225B (raised target) | Hit in 2023 | Beat — a year early |
| AWM pre-tax margin | Medium-term target | Achieved, announced 2024 | Met |
| ROE (through-the-cycle) | 14-16% | 7.5% (2023) → 12.7% (2024) → 15.0% (2025) | Only reached the low end in 2025 |
| Efficiency ratio (medium-term target) | ~60% | 74.6% (2023) → 63.1% (2024) → 64.4% (2025) | Still missing as of mid-2026 |
A clear pattern: growth targets fully within the company's own control (fundraising, management fees) were hit ahead of schedule, while profitability targets exposed to market cycles (ROE, efficiency ratio) missed for almost three years — and the efficiency ratio is still above target today.
Source: Q4 FY2023, Q4 FY2024 earnings calls; 10-K FY2023, 10-K FY2025 Executive Overview sections.
Timeline
- 2021 10-KIndependent "Consumer & Wealth Management" segment, Marcus expansion promised — peak consumer-finance ambition.
- 2022 10-K"Marcus new-loan halt" language quietly appears; segment renamed "Platform Solutions."
- Feb 2023Investor Day — CEO publicly declares a "narrower strategic focus."
- 2023 (H2)GreenSky sale announced, Marcus loan portfolio sold off, Personal Financial Management divested.
- Q1 FY2024 callAnalyst directly presses on the $117M Platform Solutions loss — the widest gap between message and numbers.
- Apr 2025 (Q1 2025 call)Tariff-driven trade-war fears; "recession risk has increased" — the one dip in an otherwise recovering trend.
- 2025 10-K"Narrowing our Focus on Consumer-Related Activities" gets its own section; Apple Card moves to held-for-sale, GM card program sold.
- Q2 2026 callBest quarter since the year began, ROE 23.5%, dividend raised 25% — AI infrastructure investment cited as the growth driver.
What we still don't know
- Whether the efficiency ratio is actually on a path to the 60% target — it's missed for three straight years and even edged worse from 2024 (63.1%) to 2025 (64.4%). Whether that's a temporary cost (higher compensation) or a structural difficulty can't be determined from this data.
- How much of the current confidence rests on the AI infrastructure investment boom — management referenced this cycle repeatedly through the first half of 2026 — versus what happens once that boom cools, will only be clear over future cycles.
- Whether Platform Solutions disappears entirely or persists in another form — the FY2025 10-K notes the segment was "realigned again starting in Q4 2025," suggesting this reorganization may not be finished.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Marcus, Goldman Sachs's consumer bank?
Goldman Sachs built Marcus as an independent consumer-banking effort starting in 2021, then wound it down almost entirely over the next three years, footnote by footnote in its own filings, while doubling down on its traditional investment-banking strengths.
Has Goldman Sachs's retreat from consumer banking paid off?
By 2026, record profits — helped by an AI infrastructure investment boom — had filled the gap left by the Marcus retreat, though the article notes it's hard to fully separate the strategic refocus from the broader market tailwind.
What sources does this analysis draw from?
This piece is built from Goldman Sachs's 10-K filings for FY2021 through FY2025 and 12 quarters of earnings call transcripts from Q3 FY2023 to Q2 FY2026.