Marcus Invest by Goldman Sachs just became much more accessible to investors

Goldman Sachs announced that beginning Wednesday, June 29, it is lowering its account minimums and management fees for Marcus Investing accounts. The account minimum is being reduced drastically, from $1,000 to $0, and the minimum investment is now just $5.

In addition, the company is reducing its portfolio management fee from 0.35% to 0.25%. These are welcomed changes to the robo-advisory investment platform. A robo-advisor investment platform manages a selection of portfolios on behalf of investors. 

According to Harshal Goel, managing director of Marcus by Goldman Sachs, portfolios are based on models created by the Goldman Sachs Investment strategy group. The portfolios are matched with investors based on their answers to questions as they create an account, as well as according to investment goals they set.

Portfolios are made up of a mix of stock and bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Investors can choose their risk tolerance from conservative to aggressive, which determines the percentage of stocks (riskier) and bonds (conservative) in the portfolios that are suggested to them. Users can monitor how well their portfolios are doing online or via the Marcus Invest app.

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“Marcus Invest is designed to help make it easy for consumers to invest and brings the expertise of Goldman Sachs to a wider audience in a digital first way,” Goel said. “We have updated our account minimums and management fees to make the product more accessible and to deliver more value to our customers. Everything we do is grounded in customer centricity and these updates are no different.”

At a time when the cost of living is steadily increasing, having a platform that can make your money work for you without having to do much work on your end could be a real boon. And with no account minimum and a minimum investment of just $5, this could be a good opportunity for prospective investors who haven’t yet jumped into the space.

But Goldman Sachs isn’t the only financial services company to make changes to its robo-advisor investment platform. Wells Fargo also lowered its investing requirements through its Intuitive Investor platform back in May.

While not as inexpensive as Marcus Invest by Goldman Sachs, if consumers already have a Wells Fargo banking relationship, it could present an easier route to breaking into the investing world.