Goldman Sachs ditches robo-adviser Marcus Invest

The investment bank is offloading Marcus Invest to Betterment just three years after announcing it will launch the digital adviser.

Betterment will acquire Marcus Invest's digital investing accounts for an undisclosed figure. Goldman Sachs, however, will retain Marcus Invest's online savings accounts that holds about US$100 billion for three million customers.

Betterment has US$45 billion in assets under management among 850,000 customers.

It will only transition accounts and associated AUM and not staff, technology, or operations involved in running the robo-advice offering.

The transition is expected to take place around the end of June.

"This acquisition further cements our leadership in the digital investing space," Betterment chief executive Sarah Levy said.

"We are excited to welcome these customers to Betterment where our scalable technology platform will continue to support them on their investing journeys."

Betterment and Wealthfront, which has over US$60 billion in AUM, are the biggest standalone digital advisers in the US that are not backed by established institutions.

In January 2022, UBS announced it was interested in acquiring Wealthfront but rescinded an offer tipped to be worth US$1.4 billion.

An analysis by Forbes found that Marcus Invest charges the highest management fee among its competitors at 0.35%. Betterment and Wealthfront charge 0.25% on the total AUM, while some like SoFi Automated Investing or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios charge zero fees.

Marcos Rosenberg, global head of Marcus Deposits and Marcus Invest, said: "As we increase our focus on our growing Marcus Deposits platform, we made the decision to transition away from our digital investment advisor offering and wanted to find a great home for those customers."

"Betterment was the obvious choice for those accounts as we share a deep commitment to customer satisfaction. We look forward to continuing to serve our Marcus Deposits customers with great products and a great experience," he said.