And this is intentional. Google definitely doesn’t want to be regulated as a bank. It just wants your financial data, so it can send better targeted ads.

Isn’t access to that financial data extremely well regulated?

I’ve often thought of launching a credit card company solely for access to people’s transaction data. That provides tremendous insight into many companies turnovers allowing to anticipate earnings.

Not regulated well enough, imo, MasterCard is already willing to sell data to these same actors: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercar...

Half of Visa's, and MasterCard's business model is selling payment flow. This isn't some novel development for these processors - they've been doing it for decades.

Shockingly enough, people don't care enough to shred all their credit cards! Even people who tend to get outraged on the internet about these sorts of things still have, and use at least one.

(And before someone brings up that EU is not heavy on credit cards - the function of European debit cards in this space is not one whit different from that of a credit card.)

Live too live in a debt based society!

Well pointed out, Mister Gotcha.

Or you could just open a checking account with a credit union that doesn't sell your data to Google.