Six new banks announce collaboration with Google to offer digital bank accounts

Google has teamed up with more banks to offer digital checking and savings accounts to Google Pay users in the US, starting sometime in 2021.

The new partners include Bank Mobile, BBVA USA, BMO Harris, Coastal Community Bank, First Independence Bank, and SEFCU. For BBVA, the collaboration is another step forward for its BBVA Open Platform, which allows the bank to acquire customers by embedding its financial products within other apps and services. They join Google’s existing partners Citi and SFCU, announced earlier, for a total of now eight banks lined up for the project.

Currently, Google operates its digital payments service Google Pay and complementary Google Wallet product to serve its customers’ financial needs. Google’s move into banking and personal finance through an effort known internally as ‘Project Cache’, was first reported in November 2019 by The Wall Street Journal. Overall, Google will provide the consumer-facing front-end to the digital banking services it makes available, while the accounts themselves will be held by the FDIC-backed partner institutions.

The company says it plans to add even more US financial institutions over time, according to TechCrunch.

Google’s plans are more extensive. Though it will not host the bank accounts, it will be able to draw on data to offer customers financial insights and other budgeting tools.