Goldman Sachs partners with Walmart to offer SMB loans to online sellers
- Goldman Sachs has built its retail Marcus brand into a $100 billion bank.
- It continues to sign partnerships with leading brands to provide financing to their customers.
Goldman Sachs continues its push into banking, both directly and through partnerships.
What’s happening: Beginning this week, sellers on Walmart’s Marketplace will be invited to apply for business lines of credit offered by Marcus, Goldman’s retail brand. Walmart’s online sales have soared during the current pandemic, growing 97% year-over-year during the second quarter, and Walmart.com’s Marketplace, which allows third parties to sell to Walmart customers, sales grew triple digits.
- Sellers can tap lines of credit between $10,000 and up to $75,000.
- A source familiar with the details said that Marcus hopes to raise the potential line of credit for qualifying customers to as high as $1 million, according to Yahoo Finance.
- The credit lines have an annual interest rate between 6.99% and 20.99%.
- Merchants selling on Walmart’s Marketplace will see a notification in their Seller Center dashboard inviting them to apply for credit.
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Another great example of Goldman continuing to execute on their strategy to build out an eco-system of connected brands. Goldman is going to continue to look to partner with iconic brands that have large user bases who will need Goldman’s “embedded financial solutions” in order to better serve their customers.
“The credit lines have an annual interest rate between 6.99% and 20.99%.” I know the first reaction for a lot of readers is, “Holy cow, interest rates at nearly 21% is excessive.” I think the important takeaway is that this is probably a good deal if merchants qualify for the lower tier of rates, but if there is no better financing option, even 21% is OK for the short-term. Financing for a small business can be the difference between making it or not.