Goldman Sachs' consumer banking unit head steps down - memo

(Reuters) - The head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc's direct-to-consumer unit, Swati Bhatia, is stepping down from the role, according to an internal note seen by Reuters.

Bhatia, a former PayPal executive, will retire from the partnership and become an advisory director, the note said.

The move comes as Goldman Sachs in October signaled it was scaling back its ambitions for the loss-making consumer unit, Marcus.

The bank also plans to stop originating unsecured consumer loans, a source familiar with the move told Reuters last month, another sign it is stepping back from the business.

Chief Executive Officer David Solomon, who took the helm in 2018, has tried to diversify the company's operations with Marcus. It was placed under the wealth business in October as part of a management reshuffle that also merged the trading and investment banking units.

Bhatia, formerly the chief payments risk officer at digital payments company Stripe, had joined the bank in February 2021.

Separately, the bank appointed Zeeshan Razzaqui as co-head of merchant point-of-sale lending at Platform Solutions, its unit focusing on financial technology products.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Saeed Azhar in New York; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)