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Kudos to Google for realizing that it makes more business sense to be a supplier of technology to banks (aka Fincumbent) than supplier of financial services to consumers (aka Fintech). More details about the difference can be found at https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/18307/why-banks-will-never-catch-up-with-fintechs. 

I asked an auditor how his ilk verifies "Cash at Bank" figures. He told me, we look at the bank statement submitted by the audited company. I asked him, what if it's Photoshopped. He didn't know what Photoshopped meant.

Internet Banking has been around for nearly 20 years. How hard is it for auditors to log in to a company's bank account and see for themselves what is the bank balance?

15 years ago, when I was in Germany, I used t hear the phrase “Gute Frage, Naechste Frage” regularly. Translating to “Good Question, Next Question”, this is the stock answer I got in Germany whenever I asked a tricky question or a question to which there is no answer.

I guess 15 years later, we might get the same answer even today to the above question.   

While the technology may be different, this is functionally very similar to EBA myBank. I predicted myBank would be a big hit in 2011. Let's see how Open Banking Hub fares.

I fear this will be yet another EU regulatory intervention in the name of greater consumer choice that will create solutions seeking problems viz. Account Number Portability, Open Banking / PSD2. 

Amazon's Seller loans so far were made against credit facility from Bank of America. More recently,

Amazon and Goldman Sachs announced a partnership to provide lines of credit up to $1 million to merchants selling on the Amazon platform.

Amazon does not seem to have the budget of a rocket. Its Seller loans so far were made against credit facility from Bank of America. More recently,

Amazon and Goldman Sachs announced a partnership to provide lines of credit up to $1 million to merchants selling on the Amazon platform.

Thanks a ton, @Derek Jenkins, 280 characters is a lot, especially when combined with emojis!

Thanks for the detailed response. 

There are still many functioning search engines. Online sales is less than 10% of total retail sales, Amazon's market share in online sales is 49%. Ergo, I sorta differ that Google Search and Amazon are monopolies.

But, for the sake of argument, assuming that they are, I see no evidence of "after which prices can be increased". Whose prices have they increased? Not Users, not Advertisers. Coming to Netflix, yes it was the only streaming video service at one point but, during that period, memory serves, it increased monthly fees from $9.99 to $11.99 or some paltry figure like that. 

So, IMO, Winner Takes All does not happen by Market Share, at least amidst new-age companies. Even in the rarest of cases when it does, it does not necessarily lead to price gouging, as usually claimed by antitrust regs.

Despite all this, I have a theory for why VCs still promote Winner Takes All: It stokes the "Greater Fool Theory" and helps pump up the startup's valuation, thus enabling VCs to fulfill their fundamental goal of achieving "multibagger returns in 2-3 years". My related post: Fintech Shouldn’t Stop Chanting The Disruption Mantra.

Winner Takes All also works for Economic Profit (= Profit - Charge for Capital used to get that Profit), whereby 20% of companies in Winner Takes All sectors tend to have 80% of Economic Profit. But this seems to be true not just for wannabe monopoly players in new age sectors but also in highly competitive traditional sectors in mature markets like Insurance, where a McKinsey analysis of economic profit of 209 insurers identified a power curve.

Thanks a lot Derek Jenkins for taking the time out and providing a detailed and cogent reply.

I wouldn't have guessed that Australia / CBA supports EFTs of as small an amount as $0.01. 

Out of curiosity, how many characters does the transaction description / narration field support in a typical online banking system in Australia?

“Bonfires of the Vanities" (book version) was my first exposure to how costly it can be to miss an exit on a US freeway and end up in Bronx! But the Bondfire situation portrayed by you seems to be infinitely scarier:(