[ctdean]

I talk to (about) a person a week who wants to create a new US bank. Some are pursuing a de novo charter, some are buying a bank, and some are a quasi bank on top of another bank.

The real blocker here is the Fed won't grant new charters and often won't transfer charters. I'm hoping this will change in the next few years and we can get some real competition.

(Disclosure: my job is making APIs for US Banks.)

[RickS]

What's your take on new entrants at the processor level?

When I worked for a debit card startup (stripe's new feature, but worse, and years earlier), it seemed like the "bank account" parts were mostly boring money buckets, and all the interesting features existed at the processor level.

FIS was tragicomic to interface with, and they control something like 50% of card swipes in the US if i understand correctly?

Seems like if you want to make a really major play, you do to FIS what stripe did to paypal, right?

[techsupporter]

Any idea why this is the situation?

What about doing a state-by-state charter?

[ctdean]

The fed is still living with the fear of the 2008 crash. And you still need FDIC insurance even if you have a state charter.