![]() View all newsletters Sign up to our newsletters Data, insights and analysis delivered to you By The Tech Monitor team Sign up here ![]() In the US more than 80% of the population, some 216 million people, are expected to be using digital banking by 2025 With demand for digital banking services increasing, though, the opportunity for tech companies to get more involved in the sector remains substantial. It is now known as Diem and operates as an independent entity from Facebook. Facebook meanwhile had planned to launch its own digital currency, Libra, but this had to be rebranded and restructured in the face of criticism from central banks. Amazon, meanwhile, has reportedly been working on its own bank accounts since 2018, but these have yet to materialise. Uber launched Uber Money in 2019 and announced plans for a digital wallet, but this project was scaled back last year as the company refocused on its core ride-hailing and food delivery businesses. Other Big Tech companies have made forays into financial services, with varying degrees of success. ![]() Has Big Tech bitten off more than it can chew in banking? “It wouldn’t be a surprise if a couple of Google executives looked at Plex, looked at the antitrust situation elsewhere, and thought, ‘we know how this movie ends’,” Ensor adds. Google and other Big Tech companies have been repeatedly targeted by regulators in areas where they are seen to have a monopoly, or unfairly promote their own products. Secondly, concerns about antitrust lawsuits may have also played a role in Plex’s demise, Ensor says. “They may have decided the revenue they stood to gain by offering bank accounts was less than that they risked losing from irritated customers.” ![]() “Google has to be careful about doing anything that will alienate major advertisers or cloud customers, and financial companies are a big chunk of this revenue, in Europe, the US and elsewhere,” he says. Firstly, Ensor says, competing with financial services companies could impact other business lines, such as advertising and cloud computing, which count banks as customers. ![]()
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