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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

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 not in the US

MagnumOpus 7y ago
> 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.
- rco8786 7y ago
  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.
- close04 7y ago
  The problem is that thing will be regulated like a bank, there will be a lot more scrutiny. And unlike Uber's "but we're just a tech company so we can disrupt by going around the regulation" tactic, doing this with banking would be a tad more challenging. Not necessarily unprofitable but it feels antithetical to the way Google usually works.
franga2000 7y ago
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.

MagnumOpus 7y ago

> 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.

rco8786 7y ago
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.
close04 7y ago
The problem is that thing will be regulated like a bank, there will be a lot more scrutiny. And unlike Uber's "but we're just a tech company so we can disrupt by going around the regulation" tactic, doing this with banking would be a tad more challenging. Not necessarily unprofitable but it feels antithetical to the way Google usually works.

franga2000 7y ago

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.