The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is launching an inquiry this week into moves by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta into retail financial services.
Tim Bradshaw for Financial Times:
It is asking the Big Tech companies, their partners and potential rivals for their views on Silicon Valley’s expansion into payments, deposits, credit and insurance.
While acknowledging that consumers may benefit in the short term, the FCA suggests that Big Tech companies might be able to “exploit their ecosystems” and large data stores to “lock consumers in”, as in other markets where they already face regulatory scrutiny, such as mobile app stores.
All four companies hold FCA permits for payment processing in the UK and their pace of expansion in financial products appears to be accelerating.…
Sheldon Mills, the FCA’s executive director of consumers and competition, told the Financial Times that the regulator was “looking ahead” in anticipation of tech companies expanding their presence in the UK financial services market, even though some new products — such as Apple’s credit card and new high-yield bank account — are currently only available in the US.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s new high-yield Savings account did not launch in the Wallet app with iOS 16.1 as expected. It is scheduled to launch in the coming months.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
