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Yes, wallets are becoming banks. Banks need to wake up? 

This is very big money. But, if done well and in a transparent, professional, competitive, independently supervised, meticulous way, it is GREAT BUSINESS and the bank will make big bucks on this. 

This is a brilliant article about a very important topic. I could write about this for long long pages, but just the 5most important high level issues:

(1) COMPLIANCE: The first questionmark is how the project will overcome regulatory scrutiny, complaince, AML, KYC, CTF, etc.

(2) CYBERSECURITY: Will the system be primary target? Will it be safe? Will there be issues around cybersecurity?

(3) STABLE: Will it be possible to maintain truely stable fx to USD or to a basket? Here, I know the answer: probably not.

(4) EXTENT: What will be the upper limit of account balance or value of tranfer. If Mark wants to play it smart, he has to start with visibly tiny values. 

(5) Apple and Twitter have to be the next. This is my STRONG prediction. 

We will see, we are in front of a TECTONIC shift. As I have for years predicted: GAFA HAS ARRIVED TO BANKING.

This is a very very smart "step2 from Stripe. Well done. Expansion, control of value chain, synergies, right sociodemographics targeted, good marketing tools. PERFECT. Go ahead full speed, this will be a success!

There is a general trend of consolidation in the payments universe. Important, relevant, falls into the general trend.
Everyone is afraid of GAFA and BAT, this fear (indirectly) drives consolidation.  

This is very good!

I agree, some years ago I wrote an article online titled 'The Multibrand Branch'. It was too early, I got terrible criticism.

Card industry getting disintermediated...

Thank you, John! This makes sense and this is useful info for me. Thank you for your explanation!

"But it has also led to two firms controlling more than 90% of the mobile payments market." ---> Wait a minute, is Lagarde talking about MASTERCARD and VISA here? ;) ;)