Aside from libra, Facebook is also consolidating its payment products under a new brand called Facebook Pay. Uber, like its Southeast Asian competitor Grab, is moving further into finance with a division called Uber Money that houses a digital wallet and upgraded payment cards. They’ll face competition from the likes of Google Pay and Apple Pay in the U.S. and Chinese payment apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay.
Then there’s Amazon, which is already in the business of business lending, but hasn’t yet made a foray into consumer banking. The company also set up a student loan scheme in 2016 with Wells Fargo, which shuttered not long after being introduced, although Kocianski noted there was “every reason to suspect they’ve learned from that.”
The firm was reported to be in talks with the likes of J.P. Morgan about launching its own checking accounts, though it’s still not clear whether that will ever happen.
As for Apple, Kocianski expects the firm will, like Google, continue to “stay in the payments space, peripheral to full stack banking.”