The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. operates as global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals.
The company is a bank holding company (BHC) and a financial holding company (FHC) regulated by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB). The company’s U.S. depository institution subsidiary, Goldman Sachs Bank USA (GS Bank USA), is a New Yo...
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. operates as global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals.
The company is a bank holding company (BHC) and a financial holding company (FHC) regulated by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB). The company’s U.S. depository institution subsidiary, Goldman Sachs Bank USA (GS Bank USA), is a New York State-chartered bank.
Business Segments
The company operates through three segments: Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management and Platform Solutions.
Global Banking & Markets generates revenues from investment banking fees, including advisory, and equity and debt underwriting fees, Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) intermediation and financing activities and Equities intermediation and financing activities, as well as relationship lending and acquisition financing (and related hedges) and investing activities related to the company’s Global Banking & Markets activities. Asset & Wealth Management generates revenues from management and other fees, incentive fees, private banking and lending, equity investments and debt investments. Platform Solutions generates revenues from consumer platforms, and transaction banking and other platform businesses.
Global Banking & Markets
Global Banking & Markets serves public and private sector clients and the company seeks to develop and maintain long-term relationships with a diverse global group of institutional clients, including corporations, governments, states and municipalities. The company’s goal is to deliver to its institutional clients all of its resources in a seamless fashion, with its advisory and underwriting activities serving as the main initial point of contact. The company makes markets and facilitates client transactions in fixed income, currency, commodity and equity products and offers market expertise on a global basis. In addition, the company makes markets in, and clear client transactions on, major stock, options and futures exchanges worldwide. The company’s clients include companies that raise capital and funding to grow and strengthen their businesses, and engaged in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense, restructurings and spin-offs, as well as companies that are professional market participants, who buy and sell financial products and manage risk, and investment entities whose ultimate clients include individual investors investing for their retirement, buying insurance or saving surplus cash.
As a market maker, the company provides prices to clients globally across thousands of products in all major asset classes and markets. At times, the company takes the other side of transactions itself if a buyer or seller is not readily available, and at other times it connects its clients to other parties who want to transact. The company’s willingness to make markets, commit capital and take risk in a broad range of products is crucial to its client relationships. In connection with its market-making activities, the company maintains market-making positions, typically for a short period of time, in response to, or in anticipation of, client demand, and positions to actively manage its risk exposures that arise from these market-making activities (collectively, inventory).
The company executes a high volume of transactions for its clients in large, highly liquid markets (such as markets for U.S. Treasury securities, stocks and certain agency mortgage pass-through securities). The company also executes transactions for its clients in less liquid markets (such as mid-cap corporate bonds, emerging market currencies and certain non-agency mortgage-backed securities) for spreads and fees that are generally somewhat larger than those charged in more liquid markets. Additionally, the company structures and executes transactions involving customized or tailor-made products that address its clients’ risk exposures, investment objectives or other complex needs, as well as derivative transactions related to client advisory and underwriting activities.
Through its global sales force, the company maintains relationships with its clients, receiving orders and distributing investment research, trading ideas, market information and analysis. Much of this connectivity between the company and its clients is maintained on technology platforms, including Marquee, and operates globally where markets are open for trading. Marquee provides institutional investors with market intelligence, risk analytics, proprietary datasets and trade execution across multiple asset classes.
The company’s businesses are supported by its Global Investment Research business, which, as of December 2023, provided fundamental research on approximately 3,000 companies worldwide and on approximately 50 national economies, as well as on industries, currencies and commodities.
Global Banking & Markets generates revenues from the following:
Investment Banking Fees: The company provides advisory and underwriting services and help companies raise capital to strengthen and grow their businesses.
Investment banking fees includes the following:
Advisory: The company has been a leader for many years in providing advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments with respect to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings and spin-offs. In particular, the company helps clients execute large, complex transactions for which it provides multiple services, including cross-border structuring expertise. The company also assists its clients in managing their asset and liability exposures and their capital.
Underwriting: The company helps companies raise capital to fund their businesses. As a financial intermediary, its job is to match the capital of its investing clients, who aim to grow the savings of millions of people, with the needs of the company’s public and private sector clients, who need financing to generate growth, create jobs and deliver products and services. The company’s underwriting activities include public offerings and private placements in both local and cross-border transactions of a wide range of securities and other financial instruments, including acquisition financing. Underwriting consists of the following:
Equity Underwriting: The company underwrites common stock, preferred stock, convertible securities and exchangeable securities. The company regularly receives mandates for large, complex transactions and has held a leading position in worldwide public common stock offerings and worldwide initial public offerings for many years.
Debt Underwriting: The company originates and underwrites various types of debt instruments, including investment-grade and high-yield debt, bank and bridge loans, including in connection with acquisition financing, and emerging- and growth-market debt, which may be issued by, among others, corporate, sovereign, municipal and agency issuers. In addition, the company underwrites and originates structured securities, which include mortgage-related securities and other asset-backed securities.
FICC: FICC generates revenues from intermediation and financing activities.
FICC Intermediation: Includes client execution activities related to making markets in both cash and derivative instruments, as detailed below.
Interest Rate Products: Government bonds (including inflation-linked securities) across maturities, other government-backed securities, and interest rate swaps, options and other derivatives.
Credit Products: Investment-grade and high-yield corporate securities, credit derivatives, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), bank and bridge loans, municipal securities, distressed debt and trade claims.
Mortgages: Commercial mortgage-related securities, loans and derivatives, residential mortgage-related securities, loans and derivatives (including U.S. government agency-issued collateralized mortgage obligations and other securities and loans), and other asset-backed securities, loans and derivatives.
Currencies: Currency options, spot/forwards and other derivatives on G-10 currencies and emerging-market products.
Commodities: Commodity derivatives and, to a lesser extent, physical commodities, involving crude oil and petroleum products, natural gas, agricultural, base, precious and other metals, electricity, including renewable power, environmental products and other commodity products.
FICC Financing: Includes secured lending to the company’s clients through structured credit and asset-backed lending, including warehouse loans backed by mortgages (including residential and commercial mortgage loans), corporate loans and consumer loans (including auto loans and private student loans); financing through securities purchased under agreements to resell (resale agreements); and commodity financing to clients through structured transactions.
Equities: Equities generates revenues from intermediation and financing activities.
Equities Intermediation: The company makes markets in equity securities and equity-related products, including ETFs, convertible securities, options, futures and over-the-counter (OTC) derivative instruments. As a principal, the company facilitates client transactions by providing liquidity to its clients, including by transacting in large blocks of stocks or derivatives, requiring the commitment of its capital.
The company also structures and makes markets in derivatives on indices, industry sectors, financial measures and individual company stocks. The company develops strategies and provides information about portfolio hedging and restructuring and asset allocation transactions for its clients. The company also works with its clients to create specially tailored instruments to enable sophisticated investors to establish or liquidate investment positions or undertake hedging strategies. The company is one of the leading participants in the trading and development of equity derivative instruments.
The company’s exchange-based market-making activities include making markets in stocks and ETFs, futures and options on major exchanges worldwide.
In addition, the company generates commissions and fees from executing and clearing institutional client transactions on major stock, options and futures exchanges worldwide, as well as OTC transactions. The company provides its clients with access to a broad spectrum of equity execution services, including electronic low-touch access and more complex high-touch execution through both traditional and electronic platforms.
Equities financing. Includes prime financing, which provides financing to the company’s clients for their securities trading activities through margin loans that are collateralized by securities, cash or other collateral. Prime financing also includes services, which involve lending securities to cover institutional clients’ short sales and borrowing securities to cover the company’s short sales and to make deliveries into the market. The company is also an active participant in broker-to-broker securities lending and third-party agency lending activities. In addition, the company executes swap transactions to provide its clients with exposure to securities and indices. Financing activities also include portfolio financing, which clients can utilize to manage their investment portfolios, and other equity financing activities, including securities-based loans to individuals.
Other: The company lends to corporate clients, including through relationship lending and acquisition financing. The hedges related to this lending and financing activity are also reported as part of Other. Other also includes equity and debt investing activities related to the company’s Global Banking & Markets activities.
Asset & Wealth Management
Asset & Wealth Management provides investment services to help clients preserve and grow their financial assets and achieve their financial goals. The company provides these services to its clients, both institutional and individuals, including investors who primarily access its products through a network of third-party distributors around the world.
The company manages client assets across a broad range of investment strategies and asset classes, including equity, fixed income and alternative investments. Alternative investments primarily includes hedge funds, credit funds, private equity, real estate, currencies, commodities and asset allocation strategies. The company’s investment offerings include those managed on a fiduciary basis by its portfolio managers, as well as those managed by third-party managers. The company offers its investment solutions in a variety of structures, including separately managed accounts, mutual funds, private partnerships and other commingled vehicles.
The company also provides customized investment advisory solutions designed to address its clients’ investment needs. These solutions begin with identifying clients’ objectives and continue through portfolio construction, ongoing asset allocation and risk management and investment realization. The company draws from a variety of third-party managers, as well as its proprietary offerings, to implement solutions for clients.
The company also provides tailored wealth advisory services to clients across the wealth spectrum. The company operates globally serving individuals, families, family offices, and foundations and endowments. The company’s relationships are established directly or introduced through companies that sponsor financial wellness or financial planning programs for their employees, as well as through corporate referrals. During 2023, the company sold its Personal Financial Management (PFM) business.
The company offers personalized financial planning to individuals and also provide customized investment advisory solutions, and offers structuring and execution capabilities in securities and derivative products across all major global markets. In addition, the company offers clients a full range of private banking services, including a variety of deposit alternatives and loans that its clients use to finance investments in both financial and nonfinancial assets, bridge cash flow timing gaps or provide liquidity and flexibility for other needs.
The company invests alongside its clients that invest in investment funds that it raises or manages. The company also has investments in alternative assets across a range of asset classes. The company’s investing activities, which are typically longer-term, include investments in corporate equity, credit, real estate and infrastructure assets.
The company also raises deposits and have issued unsecured loans to consumers through Marcus by Goldman Sachs (Marcus). During 2023, the company completed the sale of substantially all of the Marcus loans portfolio.
Asset & Wealth Management generates revenues from the following:
Management and Other Fees: The company receives fees related to managing assets for institutional and individual clients, providing investing and wealth advisory solutions, providing financial planning and counseling services, and executing brokerage transactions for wealth management clients. The vast majority of revenues in management and other fees consists of asset-based fees on client assets that it manages. The fees that the company charges vary by asset class, client channel and the types of services provided, and is affected by investment performance, as well as asset inflows and redemptions.
Incentive Fees: In certain circumstances, the company also receives incentive fees based on a percentage of a fund’s or a separately managed account’s return, or when the return exceeds a specified benchmark or other performance targets. Such fees include overrides, which consist of the increased share of the income and gains derived primarily from the company’s private equity and credit funds when the return on a fund’s investments over the life of the fund exceeds certain threshold returns.
Private Banking and Lending: The company’s private banking and lending activities include issuing loans to its wealth management clients. Such loans are generally secured by commercial and residential real estate, securities or other assets. The company also accepts deposits from wealth management clients, including through Marcus. The company also issued unsecured loans to consumers through Marcus. During the first half of 2023, the company completed the sale of substantially all of this portfolio. Additionally, the company provides investing services through Marcus Invest to the U.S. customers. Private banking and lending revenues include net interest income allocated to deposits and net interest income earned on loans to individual clients.
Equity Investments: Includes investing activities related to the company’s asset management activities primarily related to public and private equity investments in corporate, real estate and infrastructure assets. The company also makes investments through consolidated investment entities, substantially all of which are engaged in real estate investment activities. In addition, the company makes investments in connection with its activities to satisfy requirements under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), primarily through its Urban Investment Group.
Debt Investments: Includes lending activities related to the company’s asset management activities, including investing in corporate debt, lending to middle-market clients, and providing financing for real estate and other assets. These activities include investments in mezzanine debt, senior debt and distressed debt securities.
Platform Solutions
Platform Solutions includes the company’s consumer platforms, such as partnerships offering credit cards and point-of-sale financing, and transaction banking and other platform businesses.
Platform Solutions generates revenues from the following:
Consumer Platforms: The company’s Consumer platforms business issues credit cards and provides point-of-sale financing through GreenSky Holdings, LLC (GreenSky) to consumers to finance the purchases of goods or services. Consumer platforms revenues primarily includes net interest income earned on credit card lending and point-of-sale financing activities. The company also accepts deposits from Apple Card customers. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the company entered into an agreement to sell GreenSky, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024, and also completed the sale of a majority of the GreenSky installment loan portfolio. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the company also entered into an agreement with General Motors (GM) regarding a process to transition their credit card program to another issuer to be selected by GM.
Transaction Banking and Other: The company provides transaction banking and other services, including cash management services, such as deposit-taking and payment solutions for corporate and institutional clients. Transaction banking revenues include net interest income attributed to transaction banking deposits.
Business Continuity and Information Security
Business continuity and information security, including cybersecurity, are high priorities for the company. Their importance has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic work-from-home-related developments, numerous highly publicized events in recent years, including cyber attacks against financial institutions, governmental agencies, large consumer-based companies, software and information technology service providers and other organizations, some of which have resulted in the unauthorized access to or disclosure of personal information and other sensitive or confidential information, the theft and destruction of corporate information and requests for ransom payments, and extreme weather events.
The company’s Business Continuity & Technology Resilience Program has been developed to provide reasonable assurance of business continuity in the event of disruptions at its critical facilities or of its systems, and to comply with regulatory requirements, including those of FINRA. Because the company is a BHC, its Business Continuity & Technology Resilience Program is also subject to review by the FRB. The key elements of the program are crisis management, business continuity, technology resilience, business recovery, assurance and verification, and process improvement. In the area of information security, it has developed and implemented a framework of principles, policies and technology designed to protect the information provided to it by clients and own information from cyber attacks and other misappropriation, corruption or loss. Safeguards are designed to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.
Regulation
The company is a BHC under the U.S. Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHC Act) and an FHC under amendments to the BHC Act effected by the U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLB Act), and is subject to supervision and examination by the FRB, which is its primary regulator.
Under the system of functional regulation established under the GLB Act, the primary regulators of the company’s U.S. non-bank subsidiaries directly regulate the activities of those subsidiaries, with the FRB exercising a supervisory role. Such functionally regulated subsidiaries include broker-dealers and security-based swap dealers registered with the SEC, such as its principal U.S. broker-dealer, entities registered with or regulated by the CFTC with respect to futures-related and swaps-related activities and investment advisers registered with the SEC with respect to their investment advisory activities.
The company’s principal subsidiaries operating in the U.S. include GS Bank USA, Goldman Sachs & Co., LLC (GS&Co.), J. Aron & Company LLC (J. Aron) and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P.
GS Bank USA is the company’s principal U.S. bank subsidiary and is supervised and regulated by the FRB, the FDIC, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). GS Bank USA also has a London branch, which is regulated by the FCA and PRA. The company conducts a number of its activities partially or entirely through GS Bank USA and its subsidiaries, including corporate loans (including leveraged lending); securities-based and collateralized loans; credit card loans; small business loans; residential mortgages; transaction banking; deposit-taking; interest rate, credit, currency and other derivatives; and agency lending.
GS&Co. is the company’s principal the U.S. broker-dealer and is registered as a broker-dealer, a security-based swap dealer, a municipal advisor and an investment adviser with the SEC and as a broker-dealer in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The U.S. self-regulatory organizations, such as FINRA and the NYSE, have adopted rules that apply to broker-dealers, such as GS&Co.
The company’s principal subsidiaries operating in Europe include Goldman Sachs International (GSI), Goldman Sachs International Bank (GSIB), Goldman Sachs Asset Management International (GSAMI), Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE (GSBE), Goldman Sachs Asset Management B.V., and Goldman Sachs Paris Inc. et Cie (GSPIC).
The company’s E.U. subsidiaries are subject to various E.U. regulations, as well as national laws, including those implementing European directives. GSBE is directly supervised by the European Central Bank (ECB) and additionally by BaFin and Deutsche Bundesbank in the context of the E.U. Single Supervisory Mechanism. GSBE’s London branch is regulated by the FCA. GSBE engages in certain activities primarily in the E.U., including underwriting and market making in debt and equity securities and derivatives, investment, asset and wealth management services, deposit-taking, lending (including securities lending), and financial advisory services. GSBE is also registered with the CFTC as a swap dealer and with the SEC as a security-based swap dealer and as a primary dealer for government bonds issued by E.U. sovereigns. Like the company’s other foreign bank subsidiaries, GSBE is subject to limits on the nature and scope of its activities under the FRB’s Regulation K, including limits on its underwriting and market making in equity securities based on GSBE’s and/or GS Bank USA’s capital.
GSPIC is an investment firm under the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority and the French Financial Markets Authority. GSPIC’s activities include certain activities that GSBE is prevented from undertaking. GSPIC is also transitioning in 2024 to a different classification as an investment firm under the E.U. Investment Firm Regulation, the prudential regime for E.U. investment firms.
GSI is a U.K. broker-dealer and a designated investment firm, and GSIB is a U.K. bank. Both GSI and GSIB are regulated by the PRA and the FCA. As a designated investment firm, GSI is subject to prudential requirements similar to those applicable to banks, including capital and liquidity requirements. GSI provides broker-dealer services in and from the U.K. and is registered with the CFTC as a swap dealer and with the SEC as a security-based swap dealer. GSIB engages in lending (including securities lending) and deposit-taking activities (including by taking retail deposits) and is a primary dealer for the U.K. government bonds. GSI and GSIB maintain branches outside of the U.K. and are subject to the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions where they are located.
The FRB’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) is designed to ensure that large BHCs, including the company, have sufficient capital to permit continued operations during times of economic and financial stress. As required by the FRB, the company performs an annual capital stress test and incorporate the results into an annual capital plan, which it submits to the FRB for review.
As part of the CCAR process, the FRB evaluates the company’s plan to make capital distributions across a range of macroeconomic and company-specific assumptions, based on its and the FRB’s own stress tests.
Under the FRB’s rule applicable to BHCs with $100 billion or more in total consolidated assets, including the company, the SCB applies to the Standardized approach capital requirements. The SCB reflects stressed losses estimated under the supervisory severely adverse scenario of the CCAR stress tests, as calculated by the FRB, and includes four quarters of planned common stock dividends. The SCB, which is subject to a 2.5% floor, is generally effective on October 1 of each year and remains in effect until October 1 of the following year, unless it is reset in connection with the resubmission of a capital plan.
Transactions between GS Bank USA or its subsidiaries, including GSBE, and Group Inc. or its other subsidiaries and affiliates are subject to restrictions under the Federal Reserve Act and regulations issued by the FRB. These laws and regulations generally limit the types and amounts of transactions (such as loans and other credit extensions, including credit exposure arising from resale agreements, securities borrowing and derivative transactions, from GS Bank USA or its subsidiaries to Group Inc. or its other subsidiaries and affiliates and purchases of assets by GS Bank USA or its subsidiaries from Group Inc. or its other subsidiaries and affiliates) that may take place and generally require those transactions, to the extent permitted, to be on market terms or better to GS Bank USA or its subsidiaries. These laws and regulations generally do not apply to transactions between GS Bank USA and its subsidiaries. Similarly, German regulatory requirements provide that certain transactions between GSBE and GS Bank USA or its other affiliates, including Group Inc., must be on market terms and are subject to special internal approval requirements. PRA rules also provide requirements for transactions between GSI and GSIB and their respective affiliates.
The company is required by the FRB and the FDIC to submit a periodic plan for its rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material financial distress or failure (resolution plan). The company submitted its 2023 resolution plan, which was a full submission, in June 2023. The company’s next required submission is a targeted submission by July 1, 2025.
The company is also required by the FRB to submit, on a periodic basis, a global recovery plan that outlines the steps that it could take to reduce risk, maintain sufficient liquidity and conserve capital in times of prolonged stress. Certain of the company’s subsidiaries are also subject to similar recovery plan requirements.
GS Bank USA is required to provide a resolution plan to the FDIC that must, among other things, demonstrate that it is adequately protected from risks arising from the company’s other entities. GS Bank USA’s most recent resolution plan was submitted in December 2023. In August 2023, the FDIC proposed to revise its current rule that requires the submission of resolution plans by insured depository institutions (IDIs) with $50 billion or more in total assets. The proposal would revise the requirements regarding the content and timing of resolution submissions, as well as interim supplements to those submissions provided to the FDIC. Under the proposal, IDIs with $100 billion or more in total assets, including GS Bank USA, would submit full resolution plans biennially.
Deposits at GS Bank USA have the benefit of FDIC insurance up to the applicable limits. The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund is funded by assessments on IDIs. GS Bank USA’s assessment (subject to adjustment by the FDIC) is based on its average total consolidated assets less its average tangible equity during the assessment period, its supervisory ratings and specified forward-looking financial measures used to calculate the assessment rate. As a BHC, the company is subject to limitations on the types of business activities in which it may engage.
In addition, the company is required to obtain prior FRB approval before certain acquisitions and before engaging in certain banking and other financial activities both within and outside the U.S. As a German credit institution, GSBE is subject to Volcker Rule-type prohibitions under German banking law and regulations because its financial assets exceed certain thresholds. Prohibited activities include proprietary trading, high-frequency trading at a German trading venue, and lending and guarantee businesses with German hedge funds, German funds of hedge funds or any non-German substantially leveraged alternative investment funds, unless an exclusion or an exemption applies.
In 2023, GS Bank USA ceased to be assessed as a wholesale bank for CRA and New York Community Reinvestment Act (NYCRA) compliance purposes. GS Bank USA instead adopted a strategic plan that was approved by the FRB and NYDFS. The 2023 strategic plan will be in effect through 2028. While the plan is in effect, its terms will not be impacted by the revised federal CRA regulations, jointly published by the FDIC, FRB, and OCC in October 2023.
The company is also subject to provisions of the New York Banking Law that impose continuing and affirmative obligations upon New York State-chartered banks, such as GS Bank USA, to serve the credit needs of its local community (NYCRA). Such obligations are substantially similar to those imposed by the CRA. The NYCRA requires the NYDFS to make a periodic written assessment of an institution’s compliance with the NYCRA, and to make such assessment available to the public.
GS&Co. and other U.S. subsidiaries are also subject to rules adopted by the U.S. federal agencies pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act that require any person who organizes or initiates certain asset-backed securities transactions to retain a portion (generally, at least five percent) of any credit risk that the person conveys to a third party. For certain securitization transactions, retention by third-party purchasers may satisfy this requirement.
In Europe, the company provides broker-dealer services, including through GSBE, GSPIC and GSI, that are subject to oversight by European and national regulators. These services are regulated in accordance with E.U., U.K. and other national laws and regulations. These laws require, among other things, compliance with certain capital adequacy and liquidity standards, customer protection requirements and market conduct and trade reporting rules. Certain of the company’s European subsidiaries are also regulated by the securities, derivatives and commodities exchanges of which they are members.
In the E.U. and the U.K., the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the European Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) established trading venue categories for the purposes of discharging the obligation to trade OTC derivatives on a trading platform, enhanced pre- and post-trade transparency covering a wide range of financial instruments, placed volume caps on non-transparent liquidity trading for equities trading venues, limited the use of broker-dealer equities crossing networks and created a regime for systematic internalizers, which are investment firms that execute client equity transactions outside a trading venue. Additional control requirements apply to algorithmic trading, high frequency trading and direct electronic access. Commodities trading firms are required to calculate their positions and adhere to specific position limits. MiFID II and MiFIR also require enhanced transaction reporting, the publication of best execution data by investment firms and trading venues, transparency on costs and charges of service to investors, restrictions on the way investment managers can pay for the receipt of investment research, rules limiting the payment and receipt of soft commissions and other forms of inducements, and mandatory unbundling for broker-dealers between execution and other major services. Certain of the company’s non-U.S. subsidiaries, including GSBE and GSI, are subject to risk retention requirements in connection with securitization activities.
GSJCL, the company’s regulated Japanese broker-dealer, is subject to capital requirements imposed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency. GSJCL is also regulated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance, among others.
The Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Securities Exchange, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Korean Financial Supervisory Service and the Central Bank of Brazil, among others, regulate various of the company’s subsidiaries and also have capital standards and other requirements comparable to the rules of the U.S. regulators.
GS&Co. and other subsidiaries, including GS Bank USA, GSBE, GSI and J. Aron, are registered with the CFTC as swap dealers. The CFTC has rules establishing capital requirements for swap dealers that are not subject to the capital rules of a prudential regulator, such as the FRB. The CFTC also has financial reporting requirements for covered swap entities and capital rules for CFTC-registered futures commission merchants that provide explicit capital requirements for proprietary positions in swaps and security-based swaps that are not cleared by a clearing organization. Certain of the company’s registered swap dealers, including J. Aron, are subject to the CFTC’s capital requirements.
The company’s affiliates registered as swap dealers are subject to the margin rules issued by the CFTC (in the case of its non-bank swap dealers) and the FRB (in the case of GS Bank USA and GSBE). Inter-affiliate transactions under the CFTC and FRB margin rules are generally exempt from initial margin requirements.
The company’s affiliates registered as swap dealers are also subject to NFA regulation, including requirements pertaining to cybersecurity and supervision, and the NFA examines them for compliance with these requirements as well as compliance with CFTC rules.
Certain of the company’s subsidiaries, including GS&Co., GS Bank USA and GSBE, are registered with the SEC as security-based swap dealers and subject to the SEC’s regulations regarding security-based swaps. The SEC has proposed additional regulations regarding security-based swaps that would, among other things, require public reporting of large positions in security-based swaps.
GS Bank USA and GSBE are also subject to the FRB’s swaps margin rules. GS&Co. is registered with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant, and several of the company’s subsidiaries, including GS&Co., are registered with the CFTC and act as commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisors. Goldman Sachs Financial Markets, L.P. is registered with the SEC as an OTC derivatives dealer.
Certain of the company’s European subsidiaries, including GSBE in the E.U. and GSAMI in the U.K., are subject to MiFID II and/or related regulations (including the U.K. legislation making such regulations part of U.K. law), which govern the approval, organizational, marketing and reporting requirements of E.U. or U.K.-based investment managers and the ability of investment fund managers located outside the E.U. or the U.K. to access those markets. Goldman Sachs Asset Management BV is subject to similar requirements as a management company licensed under the E.U. Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive and the E.U. Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) Directive with additional authorizations for certain activities regulated under MiFID II. The company’s asset management business in the E.U. and the U.K. significantly depends on its ability to delegate parts of its activities to other affiliates.
GSAMI is also subject to the prudential regime for U.K. investment firms, the Investment Firms Prudential Regime, which governs the prudential requirements for U.K. investment firms prudentially regulated by the FCA.
The company’s U.S. consumer-oriented activities are subject to supervision and regulation by the CFPB with respect to federal consumer protection laws, including laws relating to fair lending and the prohibition of unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices in connection with the offer, sale or provision of consumer financial products and services. The company’s consumer-oriented activities are also subject to various state and local consumer protection laws, rules and regulations, which, among other things, impose obligations relating to marketing, origination, servicing and collections activities in its consumer businesses. Many of these laws, rules and regulations also apply to the company’s small business lending activities, which are also subject to supervision and regulation by federal and state regulators. In addition, the company’s U.K. consumer deposit-taking activities are subject to U.K. consumer protection laws and regulations.
The company’s compensation practices are subject to oversight by the FRB and, with respect to some of its subsidiaries and employees, by other regulatory bodies worldwide. The company is subject to other laws and regulations worldwide relating to anti-money laundering and financial transparency, including the E.U. Anti-Money Laundering Directives. In addition, the company is subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the U.K. Bribery Act and other laws and regulations worldwide regarding corrupt and illegal payments, or providing anything of value, for the benefit of government officials and others.
The company’s businesses are subject to numerous laws and regulations relating to the privacy of information regarding clients, employees and others. These include, but are not limited to, the GLB Act, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the U.K.’s Data Protection Act 2018 and U.K. GDPR, the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act, the Japanese Personal Information Protection Act, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, and the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act. Generally, privacy laws impose obligations with regard to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information and require public disclosure of privacy practices. Some privacy laws offer individuals certain rights about how their personal information is processed, provide for significant penalties for non-compliance, and, under certain circumstances, impose requirements for transfers of personal data across national borders. Several non-U.S. jurisdictions have enacted, or are proposing, privacy and data protection laws, including India, which enacted a privacy protection law in August 2023.
The company’s businesses are also subject to laws and regulations governing cybersecurity and related risks, and which require regulatory disclosures, and, in some instances, individual disclosures, of certain security incidents. These include, but are not limited to, the NYDFS Cybersecurity Requirements for Financial Services Companies. The NYDFS also requires financial institutions regulated by the NYDFS, including GS Bank USA, to, among other things establish and maintain a cybersecurity program designed to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their information systems; implement and maintain a written cybersecurity policy setting forth policies and procedures for the protection of their information systems and nonpublic information; and designate a Chief Information Security Officer.
History
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. was founded in 1869. The company was incorporated in 1998.
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