Google May Be Next Big Tech Company to Offer Expanded Financial Products

A few months ago, Apple made big waves in the financial services sector when it launched Apple Card, a product it bills as “A new kind of credit card. Created by Apple, not a bank.” Facebook, too, has looked to get into finance with the launch of Libra, a digital currency product.

Now, Google is looking to be the next big technology company to create a new financial product, offering checking accounts run by Citigroup and a credit union at Stanford University, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Our approach is going to be to partner deeply with banks and the financial system,” Google executive Caesar Sengupta said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “It may be the slightly longer path, but it’s more sustainable.”

“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.

Google already offers some financial-related products under its Google Pay platform. Google Pay allows users to send and receive money to other users from an account linked to a debit card, pay for goods or services on apps or sites, or pay in stores using the user’s mobile device. The platform is currently on track to have 100 million users worldwide in 2020, according to estimates from Juniper research reported in the Wall Street Journal.