Understanding Uber Money and its threat to the financial industry; plus 14 short takes on top developments
Hi Fintech futurists —
In the long take this week, I look at four different strategic lenses to analyze Uber’s official entry into financial services with Uber Money. We discuss gig-economy focused neobanks, employer-provided personal finance management apps, car financing and insurance as a service, and of course the global super app competition. It doesn’t seem that the financial industry will collapse from this announcement — but there are fewer and fewer places for sleepy banks to hide.
Long Take
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!
So maybe you can tell I am not terrified of this offering, as it relates to the position of banks in the world. But it would be a mistake to underestimate it, and in particular, to miss the various trends that are pulling this together. One lens to understand these developments is the…