Google, Facebook Take on Banking Duties, Crypto Shrugged to the Side?

Facebook's flight of fancyBut it isn't just start-ups and disruptors looking to challenge the status quo of traditional banking.

Behemoth tech firm Facebook is also leading the charge against the financial sector.

Facebook notes that Facebook Pay - for now at least - will be localized within the United States' jurisdiction only.

The initial press release from Facebook alludes that Libra is still alive and well.

So if Libra is still kicking, why the sudden transition to Facebook Pay? Was the hubbub around Libra simply a trojan horse for a more palatable foray into finance?

Precisely one day after Facebook Pay was announced, it was reported that Google was planning its own banking enterprise.

Codenamed "Cache," the so-called smart checking account is already being lauded as the "Future of banking," as well as the latest "Bitcoin killer." Undoubtedly, with Facebook testing the realm of finance, Google felt the need to claim a stake of its own.

The new normalFAANG companies - the acronym coined for high-performing tech company stocks such as Facebook and Google - have enjoyed a thriving oligopoly within the industry for decades.

The European Commission's executive vice president for digital, Margrethe Vestager, even accused Facebook of attempting to create an isolated financial system.

While Facebook struggles to surmount the bureaucracy of building a new system and Google tries to update the existing one, for many, Bitcoin and the wider crypto industry already fix the issues that big tech is looking to innovate upon.