It's not giving away toasters, but it is still surprising to learn that Goldman Sachs is even considering an internet banking operation, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

Goldman, of course, became a bank holding company in September. And with funding uncertain amid the financial crisis, deposits would provide a stable source of funds. Its rival, Morgan Stanley, now also a bank holding company, said in October that it would work to build its bank deposits through the sale of certificates of deposit and other savings-account and currency-account products.

Still, the idea of an internet bank—so retail! so common!—wipes away even more of the luster of what it used to mean to be an elite investment bank.

Joe Weisenthal of ClusterStock says that after the Wall Street Journal report of a possible $2 billion quarterly loss at Goldman "now here's the second horse of the apocalypse." (The fine folks at ClusterStock appear to have gotten our Felix Salmon to be working and lucid at 8:20 in the morning; no small feat that.)

Foreign banks like ING and HSBC have used online banks to build a presence in the United States and to take deposits with a low overhead. Citigroup was criticized for buying the struggling British online bank Egg in January 2007, but Goldman could certainly build its own at a much lower cost.