Go-Jek is an Uber competitor and is now looking to lead in the payments sector in Indonesia; the company purchased offline payments service Kartuku, payment gateway Midtrans and a saving and lending firm called Mapan. Source
This week, we look at:
The economics of Southeast Asia’s largest super-app and its $40 billion SPAC valuation
The industrial logic of building out financial features adjacent to the core business of transportation and delivery
Why this model has not worked for Uber, but has worked for Apple, and the broader impact on financial services.
Jump is an electric bike that is being distributed by Uber, and it just happened to be launching 350 of them in the London borough of Islington. You can rent a bike for 5 minutes at £1, and pay £0.12 per minute thereafter. That's generally cheaper than a taxi, on average more expensive than a public bike subscription. So why am I going on an on about these bikes? Two things come to mind as jumping off points for deeper discussion: (1) the incentives and tactics of economic organisms under capitalism to gather and retain attention, and (2) the monopoly powers of Uber and Facebook, leading to the impact of Libra's cryptocurrency on open competition, as well as the public responsibilities of supra national corporations.
Online SMB lender Kabbage has built an app to allow Uber drivers to apply for PPP loans directly from their...
Uber is working towards offering more financial products hiring dozens of employees in New York; sources say that the team...
American Banker takes a look at 6 ways payments has become a prominent theme during the Super Bowl; pizza chains...
Facebook plans to reveal their crypto plans next week and now they count a group of impressive backers to support...
Banking as a service is taking root in some of the country’s largest brands; at a conference this week the...
Uber, the driving service, has launched a debit card product in Latin America, in conjunction with innovative bank, Bankaool; the continent as a whole demonstrates 1.1 mobile phone connections per capita, yet only 14% of the overall population has a traditional savings account; it's difficult to obtain a debit or credit card without being able to link it to a bank account with savings; Bankaool claims to be the first Mexican-based bank where you can fully open a bank account or obtain a card via an online application; Uber acknowledged that a payment card was essential for riders using its service. Source
Uber has entered finance! The end is nigh! The boogeyman is here!
Oh. So what's involved? There's a debit card and a "debit account" powered by Green Dot, the same bank that's behind Apple Pay's person to person service. That means that Uber isn't a bank, but is renting shelf space on one. There's a wallet that will be integrated into the Uber app, within the driver's experience. So tracking your earnings and spending will be a feature that is part of the app -- not unlike what Amazon has had for years for merchants. There is a credit component, letting drivers withdraw money against their payckeck. And there's a Barclays credit card, private labeled for Uber, riding on the VISA rails.
Hear ye, hear ye, beware the disruption and tremble under its glory!