It's more of an issue that startups can not get those licenses - at least not early on. It's simply too expensive and too time-consuming - we're talking multiple millions of dollars over probably at least two years. Unsurprisingly, the people that hand them out (state governments) are a bit inflexible when it comes to presenting them with any business model less than fifty years old, although it's slowly improving in at least a few states.

The big incumbents are all 100+ years old, but Green Dot was founded in 1999, so it's clearly possible to get from point A to point B.

Green Dot bought a failing commercial bank to sidestep all the hurdles.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208006460/en/Gree...

Both Simple and Google Wallet use The Bancorp Bank for their integration; perhaps its time for a bigger stake in the organization for Google.

I'm serious. Google's data mining ability is unparalleled. Buy a bank, become Google Bank, and start lending. I believe Google's investment/risk analysis would be far superior to any existing bank out there.