I think you hinted at improved dialog levels in underwriting to start the quarter. So can you just give a little more color what you’re seeing in the market and maybe how you see the ECM and DCM environment evolving, assuming we don’t have another major step back in the macro?David Solomon Yes. I think there have been some greenshoots. There were certainly some greenshoots in February. Levels are still muted. There are obviously a number of things out there that we’d like to get done, and we’re seeing some indication of some significant transactions starting to prepare to get — to move forward, given markets seem to have settled down a little bit. But I still think we’re below trend level.As I said earlier in the conversation, history tells you that there is plenty of capital raising that needs to get done.
Generally speaking, people have to use the capital markets to execute on their strategies. But when you have these slowdowns or these windows close, they typically — you get that rebalanced after four to six quarters. We’re kind of five quarters in. And so my expectation or hope is we won’t see improvements from what have been very muted levels, but at this point, we had a very volatile March, and I’d say things are still slow, but we are starting to see some more greenshoots again. And we’ll just have to watch and see how things unfold in the quarter and into the back half of the year.James Mitchell Okay. That’s helpful. And then maybe just on FICC financing, I know that’s been a focus of growth as well outside of — equities saw a pretty strong improvement in spreads and volume, but it doesn’t look like we saw that in FICC.
Anything to think about on the FICC side, on the financing space and how you see that going forward?Denis Coleman Sure. Still very, very committed to the FICC financing business, which, as we indicated, was up slightly year-over-year. There continue to be good opportunities to deploy on behalf of clients. I think a lot of the market share progress and client engagement progress that we made over the last couple of years sets us up as one of the go-to calls for the provision of financing across the FICC space. So that, combined with the equity financing, remain real priorities for our Global Banking & Markets business. We feel good about it.Operator We’ll take our next question from Jeremy Sigee with BNP Paribas.Jeremy Sigee Thank you. Good morning.
Could I get you to talk a bit more about the Credit Suisse opportunity in wealth management? You mentioned Europe, but could you also talk a bit about Asia and Latin America? Are those regions where you as a firm have sufficient strength in wealth management to take more share from the Swiss banks since they are disrupted or is that a bit more marginal for you?David Solomon On the second part of the question, I think when you look at Latin America, it’s more marginal for us, but there is — we really do have a global footprint, and there are opportunities for us, especially as so many very wealthy individuals deal in dollars around the world. We also have very, very strong Latin American presence that comes into our presence in Florida, obviously, where our private wealth business is focused on Latin America.
So there is opportunity there.We continue to have a broad private wealth footprint in Asia. We haven’t been as focused on growth and investment in Asia as we have been in Europe over the course of the last couple of years. We did launch a private wealth joint venture over in Asia over the course of the last couple of months with ICBC, which I think is a small and slow opportunity, but is an opportunity for us.I think the interesting thing is whenever there is consolidation, as we look at very wealthy individuals that are on our private wealth platform, they tend to have multiple providers. So whenever there is consolidation, there are opportunities to talk to people as people then rethink their footprint and the diversification of their footprint.
And so our private wealth teams are very focused on that and the way we serve those clients.Jeremy Sigee That’s very helpful. Thank you.Operator Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Andrew Lim with Societe Generale.Andrew Lim Hi, good morning. So my first question is about your focus on credit cards on the consumer side. Perhaps you can talk more specifically about what you see as your competitive advantages there and how you think about sizing up in credit cards in this point of the cycle. It’s perhaps arguably quite late and some would argue that credit card growth tends to be a reflection of individuals not being able to manage expenses in a high inflationary environment.Denis Coleman Sure. Thanks. So as you know, we have our card platform business.
We’ve been building that over the next — over the last several years. We have partnership with General Motors, a partnership with Apple, and we’ve been steadily investing in those relationships and building our balances.As you indicate, given the overall environment, the total balances actually were down sequentially, just given seasonality and given some of our credit underwriting standards and origination volumes, but this is a business that we continue to invest in and believe it’s an overall piece of the firm that is diversifying.Andrew Lim Great. Okay. I’ve got a second question more broadly about the crisis that we saw in March and how you think about how it evolved and maybe the repo situation as well. So if we think about the SVB situation, obviously, they decided to sell a lot of their assets below market value, and in the process, crystallizing a lot of those losses.
And I guess in retrospect, it would have been a lot easier for them to repo those assets with the Fed and avoid those mark-to-market losses. And I was just wondering if you could share your thoughts as to maybe why that didn’t happen. It would have been obviously to afford a lot of the crisis confidence advice from that situation.David Solomon I don’t really have a — I don’t have a comment on that, Andrew. There are a variety of factors in the actions that they took. Ultimately, there was a bank run at SVB and that led to the situation we are. But I don’t — I’m not going to go back and recount what decisions that management and that board made around that.Operator Thank you. We’ll take a follow-up from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo.Mike Mayo Hi. First, Goldman specific and then general.
The Goldman specific is why now on the consumer repositioning, GreenSky sale and Marcus loans? And then a more general question. To what degree did Silicon Valley impact the capital markets and the advisory appetite out there? Thanks.David Solomon Yes. Thanks, Mike. So first, why now, it’s actually not why now. It’s like — it’s why over the last 12 months is, as you know, we made a strategic decision kind of 12 months ago at this point to really narrow our consumer focus, and we’ve been executing on it. And it’s not narrowing that focus and making those decisions and executing on it are not things that can be done instantaneously. So we’ve gone through a very, very thoughtful process and we’re moving forward in the execution of that.Again, I think these things also are just not like they’re small in the overall scope of Goldman Sachs.
The Marcus loan portfolio was profitable but small, wasn’t strategic. GreenSky, as we highlighted today, we think it’s a good business, good platform, and actually, as we watch it perform, it’s performing well. But given the way we’ve narrowed our focus, not strategic for us. And so we’re simply executing on the decisions that we laid out and we’ll continue to do things that we think are right over time to deliver for our shareholders.On the second question, which is just what happened in March, how did it affect capital markets and M&A, I think it has a effect. It was a highly — as I highlighted in my comments, this kind of an unusual few-week period with really, really outsized volatility, and as you and I discussed before, whenever you have that kind of volatility, it slows down capital markets activity.So I thought we were starting to get a little bit more capital markets activity at the end of February.
