Amazon is reportedly looking to offer up services similar to that of a traditional checking account without any of the hassles users usually associate with banking. That’s according to recent reports, which suggest that the company has been in talks with some of the biggest banks in the U.S., including JPMorgan Chase & Co. What’s interesting about the whole deal is that the company doesn’t seem to be aspiring to become an actual bank of any kind. On the surface, it appears to be eyeing the current trends in pre-paid or digital wallet services such as Google Pay or PayPal and planning a similar service geared specifically at Amazon or Whole Foods customers.
Unfortunately, there aren’t very many details available about the company’s talks with banking firms. Leaving alone exactly what kind of service the online shipping and technology giant plans to offer it’s impossible to know at this point how it might try to differentiate itself from other products that are already widely available. It’s entirely possible the company plans to bank the success of its own product or products primarily on its brand and that wouldn’t necessarily be doomed to fail or a bad idea, either. There are already several Amazon-branded products that tend to outsell other big names on Amazon’s site. Moreover, the Alexa-enabled Echo devices that the company offers are centered almost entirely on the Amazon brand. The company’s specific request for proposals from banking organizations is said to include some kind of “checking account.” So it may simply plan to partner with a bank for an Amazon-branded checking account type that is run directly through a given bank. That might actually make sense since as many as 45-percent of respondents to surveys have reportedly said they’d be okay using an Amazon-branded product as their primary banking service. In any case, any deal between Amazon and any bank would almost certainly be a huge advantage to both parties. For starters, Amazon already has amassed more wealth than most banking organization, which means a partner bank stands to gain quite a lot from a deal. On the other hand, Amazon would likely be able to work out a deal that helps ease some of the financial burdens brought on by having to deal with multiple organizations on an individual basis.
Bearing all of that in mind, since talks are said to still be in the very early stages, regardless of what that plan really is, it could ultimately fall through. In the meantime, until the company comes forward with a more official explanation, there is bound to be a lot of speculation about the plans. As is always the case, it is most likely to take that with a grain of salt until more details emerge from an official source – if they ever emerge at all.