With technology companies increasingly eyeing financial services, a survey from Brookfield, Wis.-based bank processor Fiserv Inc. indicates 55% of consumers feel comfortable using a company like Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google to pay bills, up from 40% in 2017. Thirty-nine percent would take out a loan from a tech-company service, up 10 percentage points, and 52% would use a tech-company service for person-to-person payments, up 14 points.
The results, part of Fiserv’s latest quarterly report on consumer trends and based on a poll of 3,050 consumers by The Harris Poll, comes as payments and e-commerce companies like Square Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are testing the boundaries of what non-bank, technology-oriented companies can do in financial services.
Square this summer withdrew an application with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for an industrial loan corporation, a type of bank that would support the company’s growing lending business, but said it plans to refile. Also this summer, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency opened the door for nonbanks with a decision to allow financial-technology firms to apply for national banking charters.