高盛轉向大衆市場 Goldman Sachs opens to the masses

For almost 150 years Goldman Sachs has been the go-to bank of the rich and powerful. But now the Wall Street titan is opening up to the masses on Main Street by offering online savings accounts for as little as $1 on deposit.

將近150年來，高盛(Goldman Sachs)一直是權貴階層的首選銀行。如今，這家華爾街巨頭向普通民衆敞開了大門，提供存款額可低至1美元的在線儲蓄賬戶。

Goldman’s shift down market comes as the bank is under pressure to develop new streams of funding. Weak first-quarter results from the big US banks have highlighted the challenges faced by their investment banking units, under pressure from volatile markets and tight regulations.

高盛轉向低端市場之際，該行正面臨着開拓新資金來源的壓力。美國大銀行今年首季度業績低迷，凸顯出它們的投行部門在市場波動和監管趨嚴的壓力之下面臨的挑戰。

Analysts last week fired a barrage of questions at the US banks, and at Goldman in particular, wondering why they were not doing more to reboot their businesses. Goldman posted the lowest quarterly return on equity — just 6.4 per cent, on an annualised basis — of the past four years.

上週，分析師們向美國的銀行——尤其是高盛——提出一連串疑問，質疑它們爲什麼不採取更多行動來提振它們的業務。高盛財報顯示，當季股本回報率以年率計算僅爲6.4%，爲四年來的最低水平。

The bank last week launched , a platform it inherited via the acquisition of a $16bn book of deposits from GE Capital.

近日，高盛推出了，這是其收購通用電氣金融公司(GE Capital) 160億美元的存款賬簿時接手的一個平臺。

Through that deal it gained about 145,000 retail depositors and is now seeking more, offering annual interest rates of 1.05 per cent on a savings account — many times better than the rates of the biggest US brick-and-mortar lenders such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America.

通過這筆交易，高盛獲得了約14.5萬個零售儲戶，而且它現在還尋求發展更多零售儲戶。它向存款提供1.05%的年利率，比美國最大的幾家實體銀行——如花旗銀行(Citibank)、摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)或美國銀行(Bank of America)——高出好幾倍。

Stephen Scherr, Goldman’s chief strategy officer, said the aim was to broaden sources of funding for GS Bank, its New York State-chartered lender. Until now, the unit has focused on wholesale funding sources and so-called “brokered deposits”, which are bulk sums that banks acquire from brokers in exchange for high interest rates.

高盛首席戰略官斯蒂芬•謝爾(Stephen Scherr)表示，此舉旨在拓寬其紐約州持牌銀行GS Bank的資金來源。到目前爲止，GS Bank一直聚焦於批發層面的資金來源和所謂的“經紀存款”(brokered deposits)，即銀行以高利率爲交換條件從經紀商手中收購的大宗款項。

By tapping regular retail depositors, Mr Scherr said, the bank can open up “a different avenue to use, with a different orientation and a different tenor”.

謝爾表示，通過發掘常規零售儲戶，高盛可以開拓“一條具有不同定位、不同風格的融資渠道。”

Devan Goldstein, banking expert at NerdWallet, a San Francisco-based personal finance site, said he was unsure whether rate-hunters would be drawn to GS Bank from other online banks such as Ally or Discover. But he predicted the Goldman brand was probably enough to pique interest.

NerdWallet的銀行業專家德萬•戈爾茨坦(Devan Goldstein)表示，他拿不準GS Bank是否會把那些追逐高息的儲戶從Ally或Discover等其他在線銀行吸引過來，但他預計高盛的品牌應該足以勾起人們的興趣。NerdWallet是一家位於舊金山的個人理財網站。

“It’s synonymous with the dream of wealth in America,” he said.

戈爾茨坦說：“在美國，高盛就是財富夢想的代名詞。”