Big Tech takes aim at the low-profit retail-banking industry
Nov 21st 2019LISBON, LONDON AND SAN FRANCISCOTHE ANNUAL Web Summit in Lisbon each year is Woodstock for geeks. Over three days in November, 70,000 tech buffs and investors gather on grounds the size of a small town. Rock stars, like Wikipedia’s boss or Huawei’s chairman, parade on the main stage. Elsewhere people queue for 3D-printed jeans or watch startups pitch from a boxing ring. Money managers announce dazzling funding rounds. Panellists predict a cashless future while gazing into a huge crystal ball. A credit-card mogul dishes out company-coloured macaroons.Yet the hype conceals rising nervousness among the fintech participants. After years of timidity Big Tech, with its billions of users and gigantic war chest, at last appears serious about crashing their party. “It’s the one group everyone is most scared about,” says Daniel Webber of FXC Intelligence, a data firm. Each of the so-called GAFA quartet is making moves. Amazon introduced a credit card for underbanked shoppers in June; Apple launched its own credit card in August. Facebook announced a new payments system on November 12th (its mooted cryptocurrency, Libra, however, has lost many of its backers and will face stiff regulatory scrutiny). The next day Google said it would start offering current (checking) accounts in America in 2020.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address