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Goldman Sachs Launches GS Bank, An Internet Bank With A $1 Minimum Deposit (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader recaps a report from TechCrunch: Traditionally, Goldman Sachs has functioned like a run-of-the-mill investment bank with minimums to open an account in the range of $10 million, and returns not guaranteed. Goldman is opening its doors to the masses today with the launch of GS Bank, an FDIC-insured, internet-based savings bank. Anyone with an internet connection and a dollar can join, as that is what each account's minimum balance must be. GS Bank's interest rates give customers an annual yield of 1.05 percent, a rate that trumps the average U.S. saving's bank yield of .06 percent APY. GS Bank was a result of Goldman's acquisition of GE Capital Bank, the online retail bank previously run by General Electric's capital arm. The move is to diversify revenue streams and strengthen liquidity. GS Bank currently has total deposits of around $114 billion. In other news from the multinational banking firm, Goldman Sachs believes virtual-reality and augmented-reality "will be the next generation computing platform" worth $80 billion by 2025.
Goldman Sachs!
Synonym with trustworthiness and financial stability. Just exactly where I want to put all my money in!
I moved my money out before the account got transferred from GE Capital to Goldman Sachs. I'm not sure if I will return the money to this account. I don't like my savings being used by the same corporation that was responsible for the Great Recession.
My credit union has a higher interest rate than the 1.05% currently being offered by GS Bank.
Here's the IRS page on the issue. Basically you won't owe any US tax on interest income as long as you don't work in the US or have other business interests in the US. However, since 2013 all US banks are required to report accounts of foreign nationals to the IRS if their country has an information sharing agreement with the US. This is not really for the IRS to tax you, but rather for the IRS to report your income to your home country so you can't hide US income from your country. See this page for more details and a list of applicable countries.
Yeah, these are the "masters of the universe" that tanked our economy, was bailed out for 10s of billions of dollars after their CEO became the treasury secretary, then outsourced 1,000 American jobs and gave their execs huge raises and paid "up to" a paltry $5 billion for defrauding their own customers.
No high level execs at Goldman Sachs went to jail,and the systemic problem is worse today than before the crisis.
Why would I give even even a penny to admitted criminals with a proven record of abusing their customers and being grossly selfish and irresponsible?!
Fuck those guys. Seriously.
Not tonight, sweetie. I gotta headache...
Just read the Levin report... It's only 650 pages.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Maybe he has a time machine and traveled back to 1980.
When the banks were terribly boring, savings account paid 5.00% interest (give or take), and the wolves of Wall Street were kept far, far away from Main Street.
Yes, but your credit union won't pay Slashdot to have their ad featured as a news story. So tough for them.
Goldman didn't look good in the movie the Big Short.
MIchael Burry, the fund manager who "discovered" how bad mortgage backed bonds were due to poor lending practices, bought hedges against these bonds from Goldman to the tune of at least a hundred million dollars. They thought he was an idiot and sold them willingly.
Yet when the default rate skyrocketed and should have made the hedges he bought greatly increase in value they kept acting like the hedges hadn't increased in value, basically ignoring the defaults in the bonds. I don't know what their actual role was but the movie portrayed them as acting extremely dishonestly. Maybe they were just going along with the systemic dishonesty of the larger bond market. Maybe they were desperately working to unload their own holdings in order to not get taken to the cleaners by Burry.
And I think they were accused of basically double-dipping -- selling mortgage backed securities in the front of the house while shorting them in their own profile. That's like an oncologist selling chemotherapy to the public while investing in hospice care personally.
And for those of us saving up to buy most of a house outright or to start a business and not storing the money for retirement?
Well, what you have to ask yourself is: Do you want your money to be easily accessible or do you want to (safely) make money off of it? There's nothing wrong with putting your money in a savings account as long as you realize that it's just a holding area and you're not going to make a significant amount off of it.
Realize the saving up to buy a house outright is something that basically nobody does, and the finance industry isn't going to help you out with that; they want you to put 20% down and take out a loan for the rest. Same with starting a business. You can withdraw up to 10k out of a Roth IRA without penalty for a first-time home purchase, so there's that.
But if you want to try to make money and your cash easily available, the stock market is probably your best option. Invest in some low-risk stocks and cross your fingers.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
What should have happened is every employee above a certain pay grade should have been brought up on RICO charges and the corporation itself should have lost its charter and been dissolved.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I keep about 6 months living expenses in a plain-ol savings account (earns %0.8 interest) for accessibility and safety. Sure I could dump that money in with the rest of my investments and risk eating a loss if I need it at the wrong time, but I prefer the peace of mind of knowing I have that money available and can use it worry free if required.
His original comment was valid because pretty much nobody should be keeping large amounts of money in checking or savings accounts (unless they're saving up for a down payment on real estate).
My late father used to keep $50,000 in his checking. That is until Sprint debited $5,000 from checking account for his $50.00 bill. Twice. After that, he kept only $2,000 in checking and kept the rest in a CD ladder. When short-term CDs started paying less than a saving account, he got tired chasing after the rates and dumped everything into a savings account.
So I can get 0.05% at Boeing's credit union? No thanks. Why would I do that when GS pays 21 times more?
Because "savings" accounts are an awful deal if you're trying to actually make money off of the interest. If you have $10k that you can let sit in your savings account for 5 years, at a 1.05% APY you will make about $500 in that time. Tell you what, I'll give you that $500 up front if you let me hold on to that $10k for five years. Does that sound like a good deal now?
A savings/checking account is just a place to store your money on hand so that somebody can't break into your house and take it all. Go stick your money in a Roth IRA or a 401(k) instead if you actually want to save.
But "savings" accounts are great for getting a trickle of bonus while you park some of your cash you need for liquidity purposes. I'd rather get $500 over that 5 year period than $25.
[...] credibility to declare [...]
That's funny. If I wanted creditability, I wouldn't be posting here. Slashdot exists to keep me amuse while I'm waiting for a script to complete at work. Thank you for your participation.
That's why instead of giving creditors your ACH information so they can "pull" payments from your account, you should use your bank's online bill pay feature to "push" the payments. Sometimes that isn't a good option (e.g. when the bill is variable but the creditor refuses to send e-bills, or when they give a discount for signing up for their auto-pay system), but otherwise you should use it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz