PayPal, Mastercard Tout Bank-FinTech Alliances At Davos

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, executives of PayPal and Mastercard touted partnerships between financial technology companies and banks as a positive way to gain customers’ trust and innovate new ways for customers to interact with their finances.

On Tuesday (Jan. 22), the executives talked about how financial companies had nothing to fear from these types of  partnerships, and PayPal Chief Operating Officer Bill Ready said the idea that banking institutions have something to lose from such tie-ups is a misconception.  

“I think that is a completely false premise,” he said, according to a report by CNBC. “It would be like saying,‘Well, for smartphone manufacturers to win, cellular carriers have to lose.’”

Ready said he sees the relationship between FinTech and banking as similar to that between cellphone makers and telecommunications companies.

“I think partnering with those banks is a huge opportunity to move much more quickly in a way that lifts the entire ecosystem versus saying it has to be a zero sum game,” he said.

There aren’t many of these partnerships, but some have made headlines recently. For example, Amazon is considering teaming up with some banks, including J.P. Morgan, to offer something similar to checking accounts, and startup TransferWise has collaborated with France’s Groupe BPCE to offer money transfer services to customers.

Mastercard Vice Chairman Ann Cairns talked about how her company supports Apple Pay as an example of a successful collaboration.

“People use (Apple Pay) to go through the London Underground every day and just tap your phone and then it creates a virtuous circle where people are buying coffee and the whole world starts to move contactless,” she said. “Everyone’s trying to provide fantastic user experiences by joining up and partnering and really sharing each other’s technology to create the best-end result. And actually it’s about creating something that’s seamless and easy that people can trust.”