Search, check. Productivity, check. Video sharing, check. Mobile operating, check. Web browsing, check. Smart home, check. Banking, check?
Next in its quest for consumer domination, Google will offer checking accounts.
According to a Wall Street Journal exclusive, the project, code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year, with accounts run by Citigroup and a credit union at Stanford University.
Stanford Federal Credit Union confirmed the news on Wednesday, announcing its intent to team up with Google for a “smart checking” program.
“We are excited to partner with Google to bring new, mobile-first experiences to our members,” president and CEO Joan Opp said in a statement. “We are excited about the vision for this initiative and look forward to this partnership.”
Based in Palo Alto, Stanford FCU serves the university community, as well as Silicon Valley employees—including Google.
Accounts will be co-branded, with the tech titan delivering an interface, while Citigroup and Stanford FCU handle the fiscal plumbing.
“Our approach is going to be to partner deeply with banks and the financial system,” Google executive Caesar Sengupta told the Journal. “It may be the slightly longer path, but it’s more sustainable.”
First, though, the company must convince a skeptical public to trust it with their finances.
As WSJ pointed out, federal regulators are currently examining whether user information collected by Google gives it an unfair advantage over competitors. And the paper this week blew the lid off Project Nightingale, a secretive initiative that reportedly collects detailed health information without consent.
A recent survey by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that 58 percent of people would trust financial products from Google. (That’s better than Apple and Facebook, but worse than Amazon.)
Checking accounts are a long-term property; people don’t switch very often. But they are also a gold mine of information about how folks spend and save their money.
“If we can help more people do more stuff in a digital way online, it’s good for the Internet and good for us,” Sengupta said.
This isn’t Google’s first foray into the financial sector: It launched Google Wallet in 2011 to store credit and debit cards for mobile payment. Four years later, Google Pay hit smartphones to compete with similar services from Apple, Samsung, and now Facebook.
Consumers would reportedly access their checking accounts through Google’s digital wallet.
More on Geek.com:
- Programmer Finds ATM Flaw That Let Him Withdraw $1 Million in Cash
- 50 Attorneys General Launch Bipartisan Probe Into Google
- Google Better Understands Conversational Search Queries
