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If you want to do something interesting in financial technology, you have to get away from the existing networks. Doing that requires 47+ money transmission lic

If you want to do something interesting in financial technology, you have to get away from the existing networks. Doing that requires 47+ money transmission licenses. Green Dot is an incumbent that has them. Generally speaking, startups do not and will not. https://www.facecash.com/legal/brown.html https://www.facecash.com/legal/brown.html

qq66 14y ago
The big incumbents are all 100+ years old, but Green Dot was founded in 1999, so it's clearly possible to get from point A to point B.
- dsl 14y ago
  Green Dot bought a failing commercial bank to sidestep all the hurdles. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208006460/en/Green-Dot-Completes-Acquisition-Bonneville-Bank http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208006460/en/Gree...
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Both Simple and Google Wallet use The Bancorp Bank for their integration; perhaps its time for a bigger stake in the organization for Google. I'm serious. Google's data mining ability is unparalleled. Buy a bank, become Google Bank, and start lending. I believe Google's investment/risk analysis would be far superior to any existing bank out there.
Firehed 14y ago
It's more of an issue that startups can not get those licenses - at least not early on. It's simply too expensive and too time-consuming - we're talking multiple millions of dollars over probably at least two years. Unsurprisingly, the people that hand them out (state governments) are a bit inflexible when it comes to presenting them with any business model less than fifty years old, although it's slowly improving in at least a few states.