Goldman Sachs to Start offering Crypto Services in Q2 2022, Awaits Regulatory Nod
Banking giant Goldman Sachs is gearing up to offer Bitcoin and crypto investment services to its wealthy clients. Goldman’s global head of digital assets for its private wealth management division - Mary Rich - confirmed the same last week.
As per details, Goldman seems to start offering its crypto investment services by the second quarter of this year. In an interview last week, Rich said: ″We are working closely with teams across the firm to explore ways to offer thoughtful and appropriate access to the ecosystem for private wealth clients, and that is something we expect to offer in the near term”.
Goldman is planning to offer “full spectrum” of investments in Bitcoin and other crypto assets. This could be either through physical Bitcoin, derivatives, or traditional investment vehicles.
But Goldman is not the only traditional banking firm to offer Bitcoin or crypto investments services. Banking giant Morgan Stanley is also in the race! The two major banks offering these services means there’s a growing demand for the crypto investments among institutional clients.
Rich said that there’s demand from the client side which has forced the bank to venture into crypto offerings. “There’s a contingent of clients who are looking to this asset as a hedge against inflation, and the macro backdrop over the past year has certainly played into that,” Rich said. “There are also a large contingent of clients who feel like we’re sitting at the dawn of a new Internet in some ways and are looking for ways to participate in this space.”
Goldman’s private wealth management business usually serves individuals, families, and endowments to invest a minimum of $25 million. Rich said that the bank’s crypto investment funds will be “more akin to the underlying asset class which trades 24-7 globally”. Some crypto investment funds like those from Galaxy Digital only allow once per quarter investments.
As per people familiar with the matter, Goldman is in the process of getting regulatory approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the New York Department of Financial Services. “We’re still in the very nascent stages of this ecosystem; no one knows exactly how it will evolve or what shape it will be,” Rich said. “But I think it’s fairly safe to expect it will be part of our future.”
The crypto market has been showing strength over the last two weeks with Bitcoin and some other altcoins making strong moves