The top U.S. consumer financial watchdog on Tuesday proposed to regulate tech giants’ digital payments and smartphone wallet services.
- They say they rival traditional payment methods in scale and scope but lack consumer safeguards.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) proposal would subject companies like Alphabet, Apple, PayPal and Block’s CashApp to bank-like supervision.
- If finalized, the proposal would cover about 17 companies that together send more than 13 billion payments annually.
The companies will have no option but to allow the government to supervise. As I said earlier: if they can’t control it, they’ll destroy it.
Could this mean that the United State’s launch of a central bank digital currency is right around the corner?