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Why is everyone a bank?

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Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#211

Post by buboard »

TrackerFF wrote: post #91
v4dok wrote: post #37

Another asnswer: Because the people making the business decisions in these companies is the only thing they can do. When you have no vision as a company or no visionary in your team, you get served by the countless consultants and ex-bankers who went to big-tech because of its the new Wallstreet. Of course, they have no idea what Tech does and is and of course no clue how to provide something of significant value. In…

Also: Debt is cheap these days, and regular people are in desperate need of cash - so it's a sellers market. Where I'm from (Norway), we've seen an explosion in these offshoot banks - i.e consumer loans / credit card providers. Airlines, big box electronic stores, etc. Ans surprise, surprise, many of these banks are raking in cash. And triple surprise, defaults in credit cards / consumer loans have also exploded. It…

norway seems to be an outlier. household debt seems to have tapered off after the crisis

https://www.quora.com/In-Norway-what-caused-224-of-household...

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#212

Post by MagnumOpus »

rco8786 wrote: post #132
perl4ever wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, don't do business with Chase. But this points to why people use banks, you take for granted that your money won't disappear permanently with no recourse. So you go ballistic when it seems like it might happen. Nobody in their right mind wants to use anything where it really does happen. If Google had money that belonged to me, I have no idea where to even begin trying to get it back. Do they have offices that y…

Luckily we have regulations for that. Google is not a bank. If they start to offer banking services it will be through a partnership with an actual bank. Your money will not be “with Google”, unless they enter the multi year, very expensive process of applying for a banking license which they’re not doing. Not that I don’t disagree with your point, in general. But google can’t just take your money like that. At least…

> the multi year, very expensive process of applying for a banking license

If the upside is taking a chunk of Mastercard/Visa's 600bn market-cap, the $0.01bn effort of a "very expensive" banking licence is peanuts.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#213

Post by icebraining »

vkou wrote: post #194
rrix2 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Half of Visa's, and MasterCard's business model is selling payment flow. This isn't some novel development for these processors - they've been doing it for decades. Shockingly enough, people don't care enough to shred all their credit cards! Even people who tend to get outraged on the internet about these sorts of things still have, and use at least one. (And before someone brings up that EU is not heavy on credit ca…

Well pointed out, Mister Gotcha.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#214

Post by LudwigNagasena »

belorn wrote: post #62

Looking at the situation in Sweden, I would say the cause is the bank themselves. Banks here are currently trying to remove every aspect of the banking industry that is not a digital service. Offices are a cost center. Physical money are a cost center. Talking with customers is a cost center. By shedding all those cost centers the bank can focus on the parts that make most money and raise stock value. Google, Apple a…

Cost/profit center is such a bogus concept. I can’t believe almost all big companies use it.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#215

Post by m4lvin »

tikkabhuna wrote: post #202
kccqzy wrote: post #170

> It also happens to be an incredibly sticky product. Think of the last time you saw an overdraft charge on your statement and swore to yourself that this was the last straw — you are taking your business elsewhere only to be confronted with the downstream effects of moving your “financial address” — telling HR where to send the next paycheck, calling up each utility company, changing autopay for each credit card bil…

In the UK we have the "Switch Guarantee"[1]. It was setup when there was stickiness in current accounts (English term for checking accounts). Now when you sign up for a current account you can opt-in to this service and they do payment redirection. So if someone tries to transfer your old account money, it'll get forwarded onto your new bank. That's on top of them organising the migration of payments. 1. https://www.…

In the Netherlands we have a similar service, but I am often surprised that almost nobody knows about it and people hesitate to switch banks.

https://www.overstapservice.nl/

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#217

Post by cowsandmilk »

doppel wrote: post #206

Related: In Denmark (where I live), we have an officially designated "NemKonto" (translates to "EasyAccount"), which is where most employers, public institutions, etc. put paychecks, payouts, etc. automatically. So if you change banks, you can simply designate the new account your official NemKonto, and the money will automatically be routed there - no need to contact anyone. This, in addition to how easy our PBS (DK…

> I know of people who will regularly contact 5-10 banks with their current mortgage details and ask for a better deal, and then go back to their current bank and tell them "match this offer or I'm switching".

That's common in the US and has nothing to do with ACH in any way. That's a transaction where you likely would not use ACH at all and would use a wire transfer.

> Is there any US bank that offer a similar fee structure?

Yes, there are many. One of my banks, Capital One, calls this "Overdraft Line of Credit" and the current interest rate is 12.75%. They also offer "Next Day Grace" where you have a day to cover the overdraft and "Free Savings Transfer" where they just transfer money from your savings account as options as well to avoid overdraft fees.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#218

Post by rco8786 »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #212
rco8786 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily we have regulations for that. Google is not a bank. If they start to offer banking services it will be through a partnership with an actual bank. Your money will not be “with Google”, unless they enter the multi year, very expensive process of applying for a banking license which they’re not doing. Not that I don’t disagree with your point, in general. But google can’t just take your money like that. At least…

> the multi year, very expensive process of applying for a banking license If the upside is taking a chunk of Mastercard/Visa's 600bn market-cap, the $0.01bn effort of a "very expensive" banking licence is peanuts.

Then why aren’t more companies trying to get one?

It’s a huge undertaking to do. You have to prove to the US government that you’re capable of handling people’s money safely and that you’re providing a benefit to your customers. Years of internal systems audits with nebulous requirements. How do you do that without handling people’s money? You partner with a bank. It’s easy and relatively cheap.

But regardless of your ignorance on the subject, the original point still stands that Google is not gonna just “take your money”. Your money will always be in the custody of an actual bank.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#219

Post by franga2000 »

rco8786 wrote: post #132
perl4ever wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, don't do business with Chase. But this points to why people use banks, you take for granted that your money won't disappear permanently with no recourse. So you go ballistic when it seems like it might happen. Nobody in their right mind wants to use anything where it really does happen. If Google had money that belonged to me, I have no idea where to even begin trying to get it back. Do they have offices that y…

Luckily we have regulations for that. Google is not a bank. If they start to offer banking services it will be through a partnership with an actual bank. Your money will not be “with Google”, unless they enter the multi year, very expensive process of applying for a banking license which they’re not doing. Not that I don’t disagree with your point, in general. But google can’t just take your money like that. At least…

And where might that bank be? I live in a relatively small city (~100k people) and each of the three banks I have accounts with has at least 3 branches within 30 minutes walking distance. Even if all of them tell me to fuck off, I can hop in a car and be at their headquarters in 2 hours or at the ministry of finance to file a formal complaint in even less.

Best case scenario for me with Google's bank would be an 8-hour drive to Germany, just to run into not only a language barrier, but a buerocratic one as my ID would not mean shit to them and their regulatory bodies would not even consider hearing me out without going through the EU first (== more buerocracy). All of this I would of course have to accomplish while not having access to my bank account.

Banks are one of the few decentralized services that have survived the modern economy and while I would switch banks immediately to have access to even something as simple as a balance check API, I would rather continue to fight the reverse-engineering arms race with my current bank than hand over my finances to a faceless, poorly regulated, foreign corporation and risk any one of a million possible small mistakes leave me penniless.

Re: Why is everyone a bank?

#220

Post by throwaway122378 »

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…

Nice APIs = bitcoin
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