and Apple — will undoubtedly push deeper into finance this year, their progress in banking will be "more of a slow creep than big strides," said Sarah Kocianski, head of research at fintech consultancy 11:FS.
"The big tech firms will continue to add services that are peripheral to banking to their existing offerings, without going full-stack banking," she said. "The headache of getting, and maintaining, a banking license would likely be considered too big a risk for these companies. Instead, they will continue to operate with licensed partners."
In Europe, plenty of online banks from Monzo to N26 have emerged, targeting the wallets of younger, tech-savvy consumers. Singapore and Hong Kong are also in the process of introducing new digital bank licenses to make it easier for tech businesses to offer financial services. Kocianski explained that U.S. tech companies would be put off by becoming banks themselves due to the accompanying regulatory restraints.global payments lead, Sulabh Agrawal.