Well, they like the taste of our money so much, they’d come directly to us. They are just going around the middle man, Uncle Sam. Pretty much a no-brainer. Design an account that’s 100% online that’s basically free for GS to run apart from the cost of servers and Indian call centers, then you can attract the poors’ money with that sweet slightly-less-negative real interest rate and start vacuuming it all up with fees. Online banks are the only banking category to have seen sustained growth over the past 10 years, according to a TNS Global study — likely the result not only of consumers leaning more towards convenience and technology, but also a loss of confidence in more mainstream banks. With GS Bank, Goldman is pushing “on-the-go” services that are “simple and secure,” touting itself as “a banking partner you can rely on.” “This isn’t going to change the banking landscape,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, in an email. “But it is an effective way [for Goldman Sachs] to bring in low cost deposits and diversify their funding sources.” “Top-yielding, nationally available, online-only account offerings have been around for 20 years, so there’s no new trail being blazed here, and there are plenty of other household names that are and have been in this space (formerly ING Direct now Capital One 360, Discover Bank, MetLife Bank, Barclays, Ally Bank, Sallie Mae Bank, and more),” said McBride.