In 2021, it will be possible to open an account from the Google Pay application at several partner banks, including Citi. 

This is the latest sign of the Gafa's foray into the financial sector.

After payment, the bank? Google has just taken a step in this direction. The Mountain View firm announced Wednesday that, starting in 2021, its payment application, Google Pay, will offer a whole series of new services, including the main one: the ability to open a current account at a partner bank in less time than it takes to say.

Called "Plex", this account will be accompanied by a credit card bearing the image of the new brand of Google and the partner bank, as well as a number of budget management services and promotions accessible from the application Google  Pay. Initially, the tech giant partnered with bank Citigroup - with whom it signed a partnership a year ago - to offer these new bank accounts, as well as with Stanford Federal Credit Union. Starting next year, nine more banks will join the project.

Tech advances its pawns

Citigroup hopes to take advantage of the 150 million users of Google Pay in 30 countries and who, for the moment, are content to pay for their online purchases or transfer money between them. "This collaboration gives us a platform to significantly grow our retail bank," said Jane Fraser, who is due to take over as head of the banking group in February. The bank immediately launched a waiting list for opening these accounts. Google is not the only tech giant eyeing the industry. In addition to Amazon, which has partnered with JP Morgan, Apple has been offering since last year a credit card backed by a bank account at Marcus, the personal bank opened by Goldman Sachs, Facebook , which has launched an ambitious but controversial digital currency project, Libra, is advancing its pawns in payments with WhatsApp Pay, which it launched in early November in India.

Access to bank details

The Gafa see in the bank a way to diversify and, above all, to get their hands on the very rich data of the banks concerning the incomes of their users, their places and consumption habits. With this project, this door is still closed for Google, because transaction data continues to pass through partner banks and the conditions for accessing it are restricted. But the Mountain View firm has just put a foot in the yawn: Google will allow its future customers to accept that their data be used to offer them benefits and promotions from merchants already present in the application. This new assault of Google in the financial sector comes as the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the democratization of digital payments, especially with the contactless card. But it also comes at a time when regulators are redoubling their attention to the incursion of tech giants into the sector, as evidenced by the widespread outcry of the authorities against the Libra project .

This is partly the reason why Google, which is already under investigation by the US competition authorities - who accuse it of monopolistic position thanks to its search engine - has chosen to rely on traditional banks rather than go it alone.

"We want to make sure we're in compliance with the standards set by regulators," Caesar Sengupta, vice president of payments at Google, told Bloomberg. A year ago, Amazon put on hold a similar project developed in partnership with JP Morgan, deeming the risk of falling under the burden of regulators too high.