Big bank lobbyists are plotting a Hill strategy to derail tech companies’ plans to disrupt the financial industry
By Zachary Warmbrodt
Banks are using their long-established relationships on Capitol Hill and in regulatory agencies to undermine a relative newcomer struggling to get traction in Washington: the tech industry. The battle of corporate titans is brewing as technology companies look to disrupt what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg calls the “stagnant” financial industry by giving consumers new ways to pay for things and obtain credit…. Other rifts are emerging. Amazon, Apple and Google are throwing their weight behind a new Federal Reserve-led initiative to speed up the payments system over the objections of Wall Street firms, which wanted consumers to instead move to a real-time payments network that the banking industry has spent more than $1 billion developing….”Banks originally viewed themselves as impregnable bastions — just like hotels and taxis and retailing,” said Karen Petrou, who advises bank executives on policy trends. “But enough of the industry has realized that complacency is a really dangerous competitiveness strategy.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/30/banks-tech-industry-lobbying-061454