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  • (upbeat music)

  • - [Narrator] Big Tech has its eyes set on your wallet.

  • Apple has a credit card.

  • Facebook is trying to introduce its own currency.

  • And Google has plans to offer checking accounts

  • to users of its digital wallet in 2020.

  • You can do a lot with a wallet in your phone,

  • like boarding a train or.

  • (electronic ding)

  • So tech firms are offering services

  • that are usually associated with banks,

  • but they're doing it differently.

  • - It's really about data.

  • When a company like Apple or Google

  • processes a payment for you, they find out

  • a lot about you.

  • They know what you bought, where you bought it,

  • what time of the day or what day of the month

  • you're likely to spend money,

  • and that's really valuable information for advertisers.

  • - [Narrator] Also, banking is another way

  • for tech firms to draw customers

  • further into their universes.

  • - So Facebook started out as a way

  • to talk to your friends, and then became a place

  • you shared baby photos with your grandparents.

  • And now you can shop on Facebook properties,

  • you can message, Instagram, WhatsApp.

  • Amazon is the same way.

  • It started out as a big store,

  • and now they make home speakers,

  • they make original movies and television shows.

  • So these companies all started off with one thing

  • and they're adding more things around it

  • and finance is kind of the last frontier.

  • - [Narrator] As more people change their banking habits,

  • tech companies say they can bring something to the table.

  • Google says it will build helpful tools

  • while relying on partnerships

  • to navigate the financial world.

  • For its part, Apple promises to eliminate fees

  • for its credit card, and give you cashback instantly.

  • And the Apple Pay app will have charts

  • that help users track their buying habits.

  • Meanwhile, the Facebook-backed Libra Association

  • says that using a blockchain to process transactions

  • could make cross-border payments cheaper and faster.

  • The company says its planned cryptocurrency, Libra,

  • could provide banking services for billions of people.

  • That plan has faced headwinds.

  • Several early partners dropped from the project

  • and US Fed chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns

  • with the plan, saying that Facebook's size

  • could make Libra immediately, systemically important.

  • That size is on display in the other services too.

  • According to projects from Juniper Research,

  • Google Pay is on track to have 100 million users

  • worldwide in 2020.

  • By that time, Apple Pay could have 227 million users.

  • Both would be huge increases from 2018.

  • - These tech companies are already really big

  • and some regulators think too big.

  • Several US regulatory bodies

  • already have antitrust investigations into Google,

  • Apple, Facebook and other big companies.

  • - [Narrator] Their push into banking

  • could sharpen those concerns.

  • And public trust is an issue too.

  • A poll from McKinsey and Company suggests

  • that a slight majority of respondents

  • would trust Google and Apple to handle their finances,

  • but Facebook fared less well.

  • - Some people are already wary

  • of giving tech companies access to their location

  • and their photos.

  • Financial data is just way more personal.

  • - [Narrator] More concerns over privacy and power

  • will be on display as tech firms get into finance.

  • The data are valuable, and increasingly

  • they're in the hands of a few tech companies.

  • (upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

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