This has been going around a little, a concept for a bank by Google. I think it’s an American design as some of the “features” seem a little weird (scanning a bill to pay it) but it’s interesting.
4 Likes
The design looks awfully busy. Pictures and maps for every transaction! That would make day-to-day use difficult.
The big data implications are slightly scary. Sure, it’s awkward when I wonder what a specific charge out of several is for Amazon (is it a mistake? Did I order something I forgot?), or when a car park machine uses a bizarre merchant name that sounds totally unrelated to the car park. But the former I can easily find by searching my orders myself, and the latter can usually be worked out in the end.
The idea that a bank could do all this for me instead is a little scary. Not least because, what about those transactions that are deliberately obfuscated? To take a simple example, it’s one think to have a bland merchant name next to a transaction. It’s another thing to have “Surprise Party Supplies, Inc!” when you’re trying to hide a surprise party.
Whoever came up with the design has obviously never tried cancelling a gym subscription if they think it’s as easy as their example 
Gym contracts are the worst. Lock you in for stupid periods, heavily penalise you for early cancellation (or try their best to not allow it), and just generally suck.
The one thing I do like? Human language statement searching. That would be easier to use than fiddly drop-down calendars and fantastic for any bank.
1 Like
Interesting. Visually very Google - not quite sure if this is a banking app / url or whether the bank forms part of the wider Google offer (so search would include banking details)…
In either case, the underlying strategy seems to be pretty similar to Monzo’s. (Although Google would have additional privacy / ethical impacts due to data aggregation 
).
1 Like
I actually really like this!
100%. I’d have fairly grave concerns about the likes of Google getting anywhere near my banking / finance (different discussion altogether! 
), but some sort of secure integration to allow AI type searching / interrogation / reporting would be very cool.
2 Likes
Yeah the data aggregation is a bit of an odd one.
Based on some of the bits of information Monzo have said, mainly around flight numbers being sent with transactions, this information could be instead just sent by the merchant themselves for most of it.
If Google made a bank? Well their customer service would be Starling-like, for a start. Oh and obviously mining your transaction data for ads. No thanks basically.
6 Likes
My comment was about Google’s data aggregation - I’m relaxed at what Monzo is doing (not much of anything, certainly not without permission), not so much about my banking data being added to the pool of info Google knows about me.
On the flight stuff, I think this comes from the merchant and it goes to every bank. Only Monzo (as far as I know) interprets and displays it.
1 Like
Not sure that’s fair on Google; I’m sure their AI division/DeepMind could knock an assistant out that would appear less robotic than Starling. 
4 Likes
I actually really like that mock up.
I mean it definitely needs some work to clean up the feed a bit as it seems way to cluttered having each transaction as it’s own ‘card’ and i think we all can agree the layout is very similar to most of the new startup banks.
(P.S if anyone from Grab is hiring that $9.6K pay look enticing 
) I dont understand why bank ads dont show a more real world wage.
Add me to the list of people quite impressed by this!
1 Like
Aye, that looks ace! Assistant Integration <3
Different in the US, but in the UK/EU why would Google bother with the regulatory hassle etc of being a Bank. Thanks to our friend PSD2 they can get all that transaction data without having to bother actually holding the £££. Seems to me that having to be a bank to get that insight is a bit legacy thinking…
I think the short answer is that you’re right, they wouldn’t necessarily need to.
All depends on Google’s strategic aims, of course. And we should note this mock up isn’t from Google themselves…
As a mock up l really quite liked it. I’d probably use it. Being of a certain age l do struggle with the concept of the transaction data being served up by someone who isn’t ultimately looking after my cash.
1 Like
For me it’s all about trust. I wouldn’t trust Google or Facebook with it. Monzo I probably would.
I’m not sure I would trust Google (or Facebook) with much of anything these days. The recent Chrome changes, among other things, is a sign that they place no value at all on user privacy or concerns.
I’ve taken to trying DuckDuckGo and StartPage (which uses Google’s search engine but anonymously), and unlinking myself from the Google ecosystem. As a web developer dropping Chrome will probably be the hardest, but Safari is pretty good and I can always test in a Linux VM.
2 Likes
What a typo!
For clarity, I meant that I wouldn’t trust Google or Facebook!
4 Likes
I would totally love a Google bank, it would need to be almost exactly the same as that mock up, knowing you’ve not been to the gym and asking if you want to cancel is brilliant! and recommending travel insurance when seeing bought plane tickets would be great! no way Monzo could add these things?
Not sure the best place for this , so feel free to repost in other threads .
A Google webinar about the future and banking and technology.
Google Cloud’s view is that financial services have the most to gain by merging and leveraging the unique data and assets they already possess. By re-imagining themselves as “data companies with a banking licence”, banks will have access to previously unavailable innovation; for example a one-hour home loan, frictionless onboarding and ultra-flexible, customer-centric products. These capabilities will make banking platforms stickier and allow them to provide highly relevant products and services for customers.
I’m pretty sure ‘data companies with a banking licence’ has been discussed on the forum before.
.
.
1 Like