Goldman to open bank branch in London The commercial bank of Goldman Sachs is planning to expand outside of the US for the first time in its four-year history by opening a branch in London. The company last week filed an application for a new office of "Goldman Sachs Bank USA," as the commercial bank is known, to its local regulator, New York's Department of Financial Services. The application seeks "permission to open and occupy a branch office" at the site of Goldman's current London headquarters. Goldman has been quietly beefing up its US commercial banking unit, which contains the "private bank" that lends to its wealthy clients and corporate customers, as it seeks more stable sources of revenues in the face of new regulation expected to crimp traditional trading activities. A person familiar with the application said it was a technical matter aimed at giving the bank a licence to operate in the UK. Goldman is "not planning on opening up hundreds of ATMs there," the person cautioned. Goldman has held a commercial banking licence since becoming a bank holding company in 2008 during the depths of the financial crisis. The conversion to bank holding company gave Goldman access to emergency lending facilities from the Federal Reserve but at the cost of increased regulatory supervision. New York state's DFS has regulated Goldman's commercial bank ever since, along with financial watchdogs including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The private bank, closely tied to Goldman's private wealth management business, had about $50bn worth of deposits and $100bn worth of assets as of Jul, when outgoing chief financial officer David Viniar last publicly discussed the business. "We've always lent to our private wealth clients," Mr Viniar told analysts then. I think having the bank has just made that a more efficient and more profitable business. So we intend to continue to grow that slowly, as we have been. But the private bank also extends dollar loans to companies, Mr Viniar said. "With the retrenchment of some of the European banks, there are some of our clients who really need dollar funding," he added. The private bank serves only Goldman's corporate customers and wealthy clients - offering them a range of loans for homes, boats or businesses. It competes against similar private banks at Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch. Goldman has said that growing the private bank will give it a bigger source of more reliable revenues as well as wider access to deposits - a safer type of funding than the wholesale financing that usually backs investment banks" operations. But investors and analysts continue to ponder whether Goldman may be pursuing a more pedestrian form of banking in the wake of the financial crisis. Earlier this week the company reported an average daily "value at risk" - a key gauge of Goldman's risk appetite - of just $81m in the third quarter. That's the lowest since at least 2006 and an indication that the company remains hesitant to ramp up riskier activities even after markets recovered modestly in the period. Goldman Sachs Bank USA has branches in New York City, where Goldman is based, Boston and Dallas, as well as Salt Lake City and Jersey City, where the bank houses large chunks of its back-office operations. Goldman has also applied to New York's DFS for an office in Los Angeles. A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment on the applications.