3 ms·
Not necessarily more. Better in this context means clearer and enforced. PayPal is the prime example where it's operating very similar to a bank. You have an a
by mschild 4y ago
Not necessarily more. Better in this context means clearer and enforced.
PayPal is the prime example where it's operating very similar to a bank. You have an account with a balance and can send and receive money, but it doesn't see itself as a bank and in many countries doesn't have a bank license. At least in part this is done to avoid the regulatory work that comes with it.
I absolutely want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do. For example, banks in Germany are forced to provide you with a basic bank account regardless whether they want to or not. That's because a bank account is simply a must have to take part in modern life. If PayPal decides it doesn't want to do business with you, for whatever arbitrary reason, you are effectively locked out of a lot of online stores that only accept PayPal as a payment method. There is plenty of examples of PayPals really sketchy behaviour online. Every few months you can even see complaints on HN about it.
- robertlagrant 4y ago> it's operating very similar to a bank We might be talking at cross purposes; I'm not sure! How is it like a bank?
- mschild 4y agoPayPal offers you a virtual account that you can pay money into. You can use that money to make purchases online, send and receive money from friends or other businesses. In effect, it acts like a bank account. However, it's not an actual bank account. In Europe, any money you put into that account is also not ensured by the government, like a normal account would. If I pay with a credit card, there are processes in place to deal with fraud and charge backs. PayPal is well known to automatically close accounts with little recourse to access the money on those accounts. They should absolutely be regulated.
- worik 4y agoI agree they should be regulated But they are nothing like a bank The feature of a bank is credit creation. Lending more money than they hold. Unless I missed some news PayPal does not do that
- robertlagrant 4y agoThis is what I was wondering - to my understanding the main reason banks need to be regulated is to stop them over-lending.