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Google ditches Plex checking account plan

Google has pulled the plug on its much-anticipated Plex checking account, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Google ditches Plex checking account plan

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

The decision to abandon Plex, which had built up a waiting list of hundreds of thousands, has been made because Google wants to focus on "delivering digital enablement for banks and other financial services providers rather than us serving as the provider of these services".

News of Plex first emerged in late 2019, when Google teamed up with Citi and a small Stanford University-affiliated credit union on a planned checking account within the Google Pay app.

Google later signed up several more FS partners for the co-branded, FDIC-insured digital accounts that were to be built on top of the banks' existing infrastructure and launched this year.

Citi told the WSJ that it has signed up more than 400,000 people to a Plex waitlist, while several partners, including BM Technologies (previously called BankMobile), were under the impression as late as this week that Plex was still going ahead.

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Comments: (2)

Hitesh Thakkar

Hitesh Thakkar Technology Evangelist (Financial Technology) at SME - Fintech startups (APAC and Africa)

Strange decision from becoming warrior with weapons to become weapon merchat :)

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

For once, I really believed Google Plex had the potential to help coop banks and credit unions to disrupt megabanks - because when it says Google on the outside, nobody cares which small time bank is on the inside.

Sad to note that, let alone Fintech, even Big Tech is giving up its posturing of disrupting Banks! 

On a side note, Google's decision to "...deliver digital enablement for banks & financial services providers" instead of being "the provider of these services.” fits my definition of it being Fincumbent v Fintech perfectly!

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