In March 2015 the Economist Intelligence Unit, when conducting a survey of the retail banking sector, found 25 percent of respondents felt technology could most effectively help banks know their customers better, and knowing people is Google’s business already. So, in tech terms, its UX and customer service.Īmazon for one prides itself on those two things, and could easily roll out a service that is, quick, easy to use and offers more one-on-one guidance to better money management. The problems with everyday banking for consumers, in my view, is down to basic things: convenience, customer service and a vested interest in you not maxing out your credit cards or being fined for going into your overdraft. Mondo, another British start-up has created a card that you can use like the one a bank would issue but without the hassle. It then presents all of that data on your phone, in real time. It allows users to combine all their existing cards from different banks into one card that is accepted everywhere. The third and most interesting reason for Google et al to not open a bank is that there are so many other ways of capturing financial data without having to build a bank. That’s a pretty big hole to fill for any company, even Facebook.Īlternatively, the financial industry can lean on the US Chamber of Commerce, who spend more than a billion dollars lobbying the US government on things it doesn’t agree with, like climate change, and letting banks who did bad business during the credit crunch fail.Īs a comparison, the tech industry spends 100 times less. So if Barclays didn’t like the cut of Facebook’s jib, it could easily tell its 48 million global customers that it no longer is going to let them send money through the social network. The second major reason is pissing off giant financial institutions by launching a direct competitor is a very silly idea.Ī quick and decisive response to a Google or Facebook bank would be to remove support. Now imagine doing that from country to country. This is a slow, cumbersome business. You can find out more about how arduous that is over here. You have to go from state-to-state applying for a charter to do business. In America, to operate as a bank you can’t negotiate with just the government. They are so long and convoluted that in Britain, arguably the world’s financial and currency hub, before 2010 there had not been a single banking license granted in more than 100 years.Īdmittedly, things have picked up a bit – but it still took a small private bank more than four years to get its license last year. The first and most obvious one is regulations. So we can assume these companies have an appetite for finance.īut there are several glaring reasons why we won’t ever have to write the headline, “Google opens its first banking branch” on TNW anytime soon. You can also send money through Google, too. Facebook does the same.Īmazon has taken a step further than both by offering loans to thousands of invited sellers in its market place. Then there’s other things like a mortgage calculator available through search. There’s a great piece on the difference between the two over on Android Central. There’s Android Pay – which is essentially an interface between your existing credit and debit cards, your phone and NFC card readers in stores – Google Wallet, which is an older, clunkier version that Pay was supposed to replace. But how likely is it that one of these big tech companies will move into big finance? Well, Google has been flirting with the idea through a series of small, but significant financial services. Failing to do so, would mean 37 percent would leave their banking or insurance provider.
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