Six banks are using Google Pay for digital bank accounts in the US
Google Pay will be the main way customers interact with these banks.
Google has had various products that deal with your money for years, most recently Google Pay. Today, the company announced it’s doing something a little different. Thanks to a partnership between the bank BBVA USA and Google, Google Pay will be the front end to a full digital banking service. BBVA will offer it to its customers in 2021 in an effort to expand its customer base and offer a fully digital banking option. It’ll be based on BBVA’s existing digital infrastructure, but Google Pay will be the way that customers interact with the service.
Since this article was published, Google let us know that it’s working with seven other banks to offer a similar service: Citi, Stanford Federal Credit Union, Bank Mobile, BBVA USA, BMO Harris, Coastal Community Bank, First Independence Bank and SEFCU will all use Google Pay before long.
As for what that’ll look like in practice, we have no idea yet — BBVA didn’t offer up much in the way of details on how this will work. But it’s not too surprising to see Google looking to partner with banks and credit unions — getting more people using the service with their main bank could help convince them to use Google Pay for things like sending money or for contactless payments, as well.
A Google spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We had confirmed earlier that we are exploring how we can partner with banks and credit unions in the US to offer digital bank accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools, while keeping their money in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account. We are excited that six new banks have signed up to offer digital checking and savings. In addition to Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Union, we will also be working with Bank Mobile, BBVA USA, BMO Harris, Coastal Community Bank, First Independence Bank and SEFCU.”
Update 12:30PM ET: Google confirmed that it was working with a variety of other banks in addition to BBVA on this new Google Pay initiative.
