Google’s most recent foray into the banking sector, Plex, was killed off after bank’s got cold feet about giving the firm a leg-up into the current accounts business.
At the time, Google said it wanted to focus on „delivering digital enablement for banks and other financial services providers rather than us serving as the provider of these services”.
Now, Alphabet’s Google has hired former PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to run its payments division.
„Well, my retirement did not even last a year! I’m incredibly honored to join Bill Ready at Google as the GM for Payments and Next Billion Users,” said Arnold Goldberg on his linkedin page.
„I am very excited to work with the team at Google in its mission to support a global, open payments ecosystem and drive economic opportunity for everyone,” Arnold added.
Google’s president of commerce Bill Ready says Arnold’s recruitment is part of a broader strategy to take a more nuanced approach to financial services and the payment industry, including cryptocurrencies, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news of the hire.
“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to,” Ready told Bloomberg. “As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.”
Google has historically avoided offering crypto as part of its financial services.
“We’re not a bank,” Ready told Bloomberg. “We have no intention of being a bank. Some past efforts, at times, would unwittingly wade into those spaces.”
Google wants to become the connective tissue for the entire consumer finance industry, not just certain partners, according to Ready.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
