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Why is everyone a bank?

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Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#181

Post by Totoradio »

briandear wrote: post #143
toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe in general would be my example for how banking should be done.

If France is part of Europe, then no f’ing way. It’s a nightmare: arbitrary limits on debit cards, large transfers have to be done in person at your specific branch. The security requirements are Byzantine. For example, to get a new pin code, they actually mail you paper, you can do it in a branch. International money transfers require permission (only obtained at your specific branch.) They charge a monthly fee to h…

YMMV I guess. I'm in France too and none of those points apply to my experience (except the monthly fee for the debit card and the snail mail for the new PIN). I have not set foot in my physical branch in 10 years, and have not written a paper check since 2011.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#182

Post by joosters »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #180
anongraddebt wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traditional banking system is about 150 years old by now. Increasingly, it seems to serve a smaller segment of society, regardless of its half-hearted attempts at innovation. I have a number of friends working in finance. Lovely people. Absolutely arrogant, though, when it comes to the question of whether their industry will face non-trivial disuption. Maybe Google and other current tech giants will not be the on…

I'm pretty sure that whoever disrupts banking will do it the Uber way, by disregarding all the laws that they are required to follow and trying to claim not to be what they actually are, with the same eventual success this route has had for Uber.

Uber is succeeding? Its finances don't think so.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#183

Post by rrix2 »

thepangolino wrote: post #176
MetalGuru wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is intentional. Google definitely doesn’t want to be regulated as a bank. It just wants your financial data, so it can send better targeted ads.

Isn’t access to that financial data extremely well regulated? I’ve often thought of launching a credit card company solely for access to people’s transaction data. That provides tremendous insight into many companies turnovers allowing to anticipate earnings.

Not regulated well enough, imo, MasterCard is already willing to sell data to these same actors: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercar...

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#184

Post by cies »

Not "everyone" is a bank. Some big companies can afford to be a bank.

Becoming a bank (or an insurance company) while it is actually not that hard (information mgmt wise) is really expensive due to regulatory bumps. Thus only big money can afford to start up banks (or insure'ers). These rules ensure that you always have capitalists running these shows. Thus making the world even more unfair. I guess the rules that make it so artificially hard to start up in those sectors are prolly lobbied into existence.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#185

Post by mcv »

tlb wrote: post #4

Another answer: because regular banks are awful to deal with. They don't have nice APIs to just move money around. They apply velocity limits at surprising times. They can terminate your account suddenly for opaque reasons. They charge high regular fees and even higher "gotcha" fees if you make a mistake. They can take back money sent to you for up to 90 days, but often can't get back money you sent to crooks even if…

I have absolutely no interest in using any of these online start-up banks, but Dutch banks tend to be pretty decent. They're well regulated and try to be aware of their social responsibility. Most of the banks I've worked for appear to the taking this fairly seriously, and try to run their software departments as real tech companies. They try to make accessing your money as easy, convenient and cheap as possible without compromising security. They're by no means perfect, but they're a lot better than most American banks sound.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#187

Post by satanspastaroll »

joosters wrote: post #182
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that whoever disrupts banking will do it the Uber way, by disregarding all the laws that they are required to follow and trying to claim not to be what they actually are, with the same eventual success this route has had for Uber.

Uber is succeeding? Its finances don't think so.

It's really amazing how a company can run for so long on so much loss. IIRC Twitter has never turned a profit either, and yet there it stands

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#188

Post by wheybags »

> for a large credit scarred portion of the populace, it's their primary spending account!

As a European, this sentence seemed weird. Why wouldn't it be? Do people not use debit cards in the us?

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#189

Post by cm2187 »

tlb wrote: post #4

Another answer: because regular banks are awful to deal with. They don't have nice APIs to just move money around. They apply velocity limits at surprising times. They can terminate your account suddenly for opaque reasons. They charge high regular fees and even higher "gotcha" fees if you make a mistake. They can take back money sent to you for up to 90 days, but often can't get back money you sent to crooks even if…

To their defence you should see the eye watering piles of regulations they have to comply with. A large international bank will typically have a whole team dedicated to just reading all the draft and final regulations that are coming every week.

Regulators state that they want more competition but in reality they don’t. Those regulations create massive barriers to entry. And regulators are wary about smaller players who will not have the scale to be financially robust, will be more likely to be a dodgy operation, and not to have all the established procedures of a large player.

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