What’s behind the current backlash against tech firms? Will they be eventually regulated like banks? Meanwhile, the group of tech giants active in financial services has just got bigger, with Microsoft entering the fray.

Will tech giants be brought into line?

As big tech companies are entering the financial services space, they will be more and more regulated like banks, Chris Skinner predicts. “In the meantime, watch your data, as no one else will.”

In a recent presentation, Nick Thompson, editor-in-chief at Wired, gave four reasons for the current backlash against tech firms: we’ve become hooked on technology, tech giants are trampling on our privacy rights, they are all too powerful and all too scary, and have an unprecedented influence on the news and our beliefs.

Is Microsoft the next disruptor?

Another big tech firm is venturing into financial services, joining the ever-expanding group of digital disruptors that already includes Amazon, Google, Apple or Alibaba, Finextra has reported.

Microsoft is to integrate a payments panel into Outlook, meaning that users will soon be able to pay bills and invoices directly from their inbox. Payments in Outlook will be rolled out gradually, first to a limited number of customers over the next few weeks.

German banks to see “a tidal change”

The German banking market is “looking at a tidal change” for traditional financial institutions, according to Achim Berg, president of the German Information Technology Association.

The association’s survey found that 57% of Germans ranked digital services offered as a key selling point for banks. And that’s not all. 19% would consider switching to a digital-only bank, while 9% were actually planning to do so over the next year.

Use of mobile banking apps stalls in the US

A new report by Mercator Advisory Group shows that US financial institutions need to upgrade the customer experience of their mobile banking app for greater use. Before anything else, banks should make login faster and easier.

The report found that even though the proportion of US mobile banking users is up at 64% (from 53% in 2016), the use of mobile banking apps seems to have come to a halt. More customers access mobile banking from the web browser on their bank’s website, making it the preferred mobile banking method ahead of apps.


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