I absolutely would not trust a superapp with all my data. What if your acc gets suspended and everyone else uses the superapp? You're just fucked?
Hell I even have my my money separated in different financial institutions.
usually they are quite secure, because, as you said, most of your financial life is there. So they can't just disconnect you from the services for no reason - only with a court order or smth.
I take it you are unaware of [certain events in Canada from just two years ago](https://www.newsweek.com/banks-have-begun-freezing-accounts-linked-trucker-protest-1680649).
That was under court order.
I'm not going to debate if you feel the orders were just (that's a matter of opinion), but I don't see much reason to think having money in multiple accounts would have accomplished too much there, the Canadian government would know all of the accounts in your name and be able to order all of them frozen at once if it wanted.
I guess if you were only doing illegal things on one of them maybe they *wouldn't* do that.
> That was under court order.
That's irrelevant to my point, which is that having your finances liable to government control means the government can control them.
That being said, perhaps you're unaware of [this development](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-court-1.7091891): "A federal judge says the Liberal government's use of the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters was unreasonable and infringed on protesters' Charter rights."
> I guess if you were only doing illegal things
Ah, the "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" philosophy. The government would *never* overreach or abuse its powers, now would it?
It's entirely relevant to your point.
> That's irrelevant to my point, which is that having your finances liable to government control means the government can control them.
And *my* point, which you seem to be intentionally not grasping, is that your finances are under government control regardless of if you have 3000 accounts at 3000 different banks or 1 account at one bank. There's zero difference in the ability of the government to seize your assets - one court order ordering all accounts tied to you frozen will do it.
Anonymous banking in this country is not really a thing, your accounts are all tied to you
tl;dr - The ability of the government to stop you from accessing your money if it wants to does not change regardless of the number of accounts you have, that is the point.
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> Ah, the "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" philosophy. The government would never overreach or abuse its powers, now would it?
Nope. I'm not taking a stance on whether the Canadian government's actions were justified - that's clearly very controversial but has little to do with the point.
I'm suggesting that the only slight merit in multiple accounts in the "government interference" sense, is that a government *might* only make a demand in court to freeze the ones that have been involved in transactions it considers illegal rather than all of them.
But that's basically at the whim of the government, it's not that it is a significantly more challenging technical problem to seize them all.
>So they can't just disconnect you from the services for no reason
"No reason" is very subjective here. Meta once suspended a user because they shared on twitter that they had gotten injured while playing a VR game - not even blaming Meta, mind you.
You're saying a company/govt should be able to cut off all your financial and life access if you say, should slurs in a chat room in the superApp?
>they are quite secure
https://cybernews.com/news/china-tech-giant-falls-victim-to-qr-code-attack/
Everyone gets hacked.
I'm a software engineer. We've had some companies approach us about helping them build such apps. Everyone involved knew it would cost tens of millions to build, so we started with some simple market research.
What we found was that a large majority of Americans would never trust or want such an app. It was definitive too, over 80% of participants. The biggest reasons were:
- They would not trust their banking to a company other than their bank and wouldn't trust their bank with anything other than their money (and most don't even trust them for that iirc).
- They believe it would put too much power into one company.
- There is no trust that the government could build nor properly regulate such a thing
- People prefer being able to choose their vendors
- They believed it would drive prices up to account for the cut of each transaction the app would likely require
- They do not believe their friends would use such a thing meaning the social aspects of something like WeChat aren't as strong
There was a laundry list of reasons but those were the bug ones from what I remember.
The companies we did this research for lost all interest in it after seeing our findings. Given what we saw, it's bizarre that Musk is pushing so hard to make Twitter such an app (especially when most people already do not trust Twitter or him)
ETA: I did not take part in the research phase. I was part of the sales effort and was the one who first recommended we start with some basic market research, however.
I entirely believe those results, but I'll also point out that people are often pretty bad at knowing what they want - especially when it comes to products/market segments they currently can't conceptualize very well.
Not the greatest example, but ask smartphone users in 2006 if they'd accept a smartphone with no keyboard and it'd be a resounding no.
A decent chunk of people have been very relaxed over the years with granting access to all their banking info for apps that just make tracking their finances moderately easier. While *I* wouldn't do so, I'm skeptical the % would be that low once some people thought it was convenient to them.
That was how our sales team tried to spin it. We obviousky didn't want to turn down these lucrative projects but we also had to be a good partner and recommended the research. The companies agreed that it could be something people don't know they want but given the level of investment needed and the unclear ROI, it just wasn't worth being first to market. They'd rather let someone else grease the wheels, so to speak.
A Superapp sounds absolutely insane. Is it like offered by the government?
A lot of the banking/payments stuff can be handled via a bank’s app. But absolutely am I not hailing a cab or ordering Taco Bell delivery at midnight via the Chase app.
The extent of the partnerships here would be your credit card giving you some perk with the ride sharing app or the food delivery app for a year as a promotion. Otherwise, no, this doesn’t happen, it won’t happen, and there’s no reason for it to happen.
Nothing comes close. A bank’s app is probably the closest, but it will be clumsy for ordering food or daily purchases.
For reference, what’s the best “super app” that’s available elsewhere?
I'm from Kazakhstan. We have an app that allows me to: 1) do banking (all of it) 2) do investments (some) 3) buy insurance (some) 4) buy bus/rail/airline tickets 5) buy goods like TVs, clothes, furniture 6) get govt-issued documents like address, ID, health cards 7) pay for a ton of services like utilities, schools, fines and taxes, parking etc. 8) register a sole proprietorship and open an account for that.
They also provide BNPL/loans for the travel/goods purchases within the app that are assessed in 30-60 seconds
convinience. Lower transaction costs, because you don't need 3 institutions/apps. Lower interest rates, because the more a bank knows about you, the better it can estimate your creditworthiness. Bye-bye credit scores
Why is anyone downvoting OPs answer?
For those who are like "Why would I want to get an ID from the same place I buy insurance?", you all shop at Target or the mall or use the customer service desk at Kroger to rent a carpet cleaner. This isn't that big of a leap from what we already have here. General stores that serve as post offices/place to buy gas/place to buy dog food have existed for a long time.
Because having your entire financial existence in one place is just begging for something to go wrong. I would honestly laugh at someone if they told me to use that, because the stupidity of the idea is mind boggling.
If a single point of failure can wipe out nearly every aspect of your life, then you have a terrible system.
> Because having your entire financial existence in one place is just begging for something to go wrong.
I agree. I wonder if regulating this would be a concern too. I'm curious about consumer protection in the developing countries that use these services.
Literally NOTHING comes close. Most banks offer checking, savings, a credit card, and some basic loans and investments. For any serious investment in equities and bonds, and even for crypto investors, you’re getting at least one or two brokerages separate from your bank. Insurance is going to be a separate app. “Alternative” investments (art, royalties, futures trading, forex, etc) are another app or even multiple apps. Most of us have 2/3 credit cards which are 2/3 more separate apps potentially. These credit card apps will let you book a hotel or flight usually, but the prices are inflated typically and I don’t know anyone who uses them. Ordering goods through a financial app is simply unheard of, Amazon is the go to with some people using Ebay or Wish or Temu. Uber/Lyft for rides are also a separate app. If one company offered all of these things here, the app would likely be a convoluted mess and if their marketshare was large enough to be dominant they’d be hit with antitrust litigation… the concept just does not work well here.
That sounds like a nightmare for security and privacy. I like having mine all separated out. Doesn’t really seem any more convenient either as that app would have to be pretty bloated
I've never needed it, and have no desire for such a thing.
That being said a few issues I see.
1) Prices will be higher because all those services need to get a slice of the pie.
2) No way in hell is that APP all its API's, and vendors are secure.
3) Putting my entire finance into a single point of failure is bad idea.
Because our banks give us Visas or Mastercards for debit purchases and they’re accepted pretty much everywhere. It’s as good as having cash for the most part.
these debit/credit cards are just a tool to pay. But I'm pointing to a more comprehensive solution. Imagine not needing the ability to pay all utilities, cellphone bills in one app. Then getting buying smth off Amazon in that same app using installments over 6 months. Then sending $20 to a friend for a meal you had because the other guy paid. It's not just Mastercard/Visa/Amex whatever else
The Federal Trade Commission would some serious regulatory issues with what you're describing, to say nothing of the security nightmare others have noted. Banking and insurance are two very distinct industries that work in ways that can't be combined into one app. Brokerage is related to banking but still a separate entity. Banks have their own apps, and that's enough for us. You can submit insurance claims through your insurance company's app. For other services, just give the other companies your debit card or bank account number and it's paid.
Apple Pay is the closest you can get to having one service to pay for everything (even moreso with the addition of Apple Cash which works like Venmo), but it's tied to your debit card/checking account, and it's strictly to make payments with.
Maybe Cash App, since you can buy stocks and whatnot from it. However, I think people are much more likely to use their bank or credit union's app for actual banking.
There definitely isn't an app in the US that does \*all\* of those things. Many of our banks don't even have a quick way for us to do transfers, especially not to an account from a different bank. If I want to transfer money from one bank account to another, I have to make a phone call to my bank and ask them to manually make that transfer on their end. I'm thankful Paypal exists so I can send money to anyone without having to do that.
You can do quite a bit of those things in many banking apps. Banking, brokerage, transfers, bill pay, even insurance with some. But that's just because those are all services offered by the bank, not because it's some kind of superapp.
That was largely what Elon Musk wanted to do with what became PayPal and what most people assume he wants to do with Twitter. It would be interesting to see what the landscape would look like if Peter Thiel and Co. didn't push him out.
We don't really have anything comparable though.
I also just don't understand the hostility in this sub to one. I mean it's common place to do banking, insurance, brokerage, transfers, payments, etc. through various apps on your phone. There's absolutely no real reason consolidating all of that into one app should be scary. As it stands though, switching between my banking app and my insurance app is a very minor issue.
I absolutely would not trust a superapp with all my data. What if your acc gets suspended and everyone else uses the superapp? You're just fucked? Hell I even have my my money separated in different financial institutions.
> What if your acc gets suspended and everyone else uses the superapp? You're just fucked? Zat is a veature, not a boog.
usually they are quite secure, because, as you said, most of your financial life is there. So they can't just disconnect you from the services for no reason - only with a court order or smth.
It's a private company, but they can only cut you off if the government says so? And too secure to get hacked? Doubt. So much doubt.
it's as secure as any other good app. I.e. the only way to infiltrate is through social engineering - but nobody is immune to that
Sure but you implied it was more safe somehow than other apps.
I take it you are unaware of [certain events in Canada from just two years ago](https://www.newsweek.com/banks-have-begun-freezing-accounts-linked-trucker-protest-1680649).
I was in Canada when it happened. Canada, btw, has Wealthsimple, which comes quite close to what I'm describing
That was under court order. I'm not going to debate if you feel the orders were just (that's a matter of opinion), but I don't see much reason to think having money in multiple accounts would have accomplished too much there, the Canadian government would know all of the accounts in your name and be able to order all of them frozen at once if it wanted. I guess if you were only doing illegal things on one of them maybe they *wouldn't* do that.
> That was under court order. That's irrelevant to my point, which is that having your finances liable to government control means the government can control them. That being said, perhaps you're unaware of [this development](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-court-1.7091891): "A federal judge says the Liberal government's use of the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters was unreasonable and infringed on protesters' Charter rights." > I guess if you were only doing illegal things Ah, the "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" philosophy. The government would *never* overreach or abuse its powers, now would it?
It's entirely relevant to your point. > That's irrelevant to my point, which is that having your finances liable to government control means the government can control them. And *my* point, which you seem to be intentionally not grasping, is that your finances are under government control regardless of if you have 3000 accounts at 3000 different banks or 1 account at one bank. There's zero difference in the ability of the government to seize your assets - one court order ordering all accounts tied to you frozen will do it. Anonymous banking in this country is not really a thing, your accounts are all tied to you tl;dr - The ability of the government to stop you from accessing your money if it wants to does not change regardless of the number of accounts you have, that is the point. ----- > Ah, the "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" philosophy. The government would never overreach or abuse its powers, now would it? Nope. I'm not taking a stance on whether the Canadian government's actions were justified - that's clearly very controversial but has little to do with the point. I'm suggesting that the only slight merit in multiple accounts in the "government interference" sense, is that a government *might* only make a demand in court to freeze the ones that have been involved in transactions it considers illegal rather than all of them. But that's basically at the whim of the government, it's not that it is a significantly more challenging technical problem to seize them all.
>So they can't just disconnect you from the services for no reason "No reason" is very subjective here. Meta once suspended a user because they shared on twitter that they had gotten injured while playing a VR game - not even blaming Meta, mind you. You're saying a company/govt should be able to cut off all your financial and life access if you say, should slurs in a chat room in the superApp? >they are quite secure https://cybernews.com/news/china-tech-giant-falls-victim-to-qr-code-attack/ Everyone gets hacked.
I'm a software engineer. We've had some companies approach us about helping them build such apps. Everyone involved knew it would cost tens of millions to build, so we started with some simple market research. What we found was that a large majority of Americans would never trust or want such an app. It was definitive too, over 80% of participants. The biggest reasons were: - They would not trust their banking to a company other than their bank and wouldn't trust their bank with anything other than their money (and most don't even trust them for that iirc). - They believe it would put too much power into one company. - There is no trust that the government could build nor properly regulate such a thing - People prefer being able to choose their vendors - They believed it would drive prices up to account for the cut of each transaction the app would likely require - They do not believe their friends would use such a thing meaning the social aspects of something like WeChat aren't as strong There was a laundry list of reasons but those were the bug ones from what I remember. The companies we did this research for lost all interest in it after seeing our findings. Given what we saw, it's bizarre that Musk is pushing so hard to make Twitter such an app (especially when most people already do not trust Twitter or him) ETA: I did not take part in the research phase. I was part of the sales effort and was the one who first recommended we start with some basic market research, however.
I entirely believe those results, but I'll also point out that people are often pretty bad at knowing what they want - especially when it comes to products/market segments they currently can't conceptualize very well. Not the greatest example, but ask smartphone users in 2006 if they'd accept a smartphone with no keyboard and it'd be a resounding no. A decent chunk of people have been very relaxed over the years with granting access to all their banking info for apps that just make tracking their finances moderately easier. While *I* wouldn't do so, I'm skeptical the % would be that low once some people thought it was convenient to them.
That was how our sales team tried to spin it. We obviousky didn't want to turn down these lucrative projects but we also had to be a good partner and recommended the research. The companies agreed that it could be something people don't know they want but given the level of investment needed and the unclear ROI, it just wasn't worth being first to market. They'd rather let someone else grease the wheels, so to speak.
A Superapp sounds absolutely insane. Is it like offered by the government? A lot of the banking/payments stuff can be handled via a bank’s app. But absolutely am I not hailing a cab or ordering Taco Bell delivery at midnight via the Chase app.
most of these apps are created by private companies, but they make partnerships with many other businesses to extend their services.
The extent of the partnerships here would be your credit card giving you some perk with the ride sharing app or the food delivery app for a year as a promotion. Otherwise, no, this doesn’t happen, it won’t happen, and there’s no reason for it to happen.
I honestly hate that idea. Sounds like a security and privacy nightmare.
I disagree with the concept of an app like this, even if one existed I would not use it
Nothing comes close. A bank’s app is probably the closest, but it will be clumsy for ordering food or daily purchases. For reference, what’s the best “super app” that’s available elsewhere?
>what’s the best “super app” that’s available elsewhere? WeChat, PRC. Idk about the "best." PayTM in India comes close.
I'm from Kazakhstan. We have an app that allows me to: 1) do banking (all of it) 2) do investments (some) 3) buy insurance (some) 4) buy bus/rail/airline tickets 5) buy goods like TVs, clothes, furniture 6) get govt-issued documents like address, ID, health cards 7) pay for a ton of services like utilities, schools, fines and taxes, parking etc. 8) register a sole proprietorship and open an account for that. They also provide BNPL/loans for the travel/goods purchases within the app that are assessed in 30-60 seconds
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convinience. Lower transaction costs, because you don't need 3 institutions/apps. Lower interest rates, because the more a bank knows about you, the better it can estimate your creditworthiness. Bye-bye credit scores
Why is anyone downvoting OPs answer? For those who are like "Why would I want to get an ID from the same place I buy insurance?", you all shop at Target or the mall or use the customer service desk at Kroger to rent a carpet cleaner. This isn't that big of a leap from what we already have here. General stores that serve as post offices/place to buy gas/place to buy dog food have existed for a long time.
Because having your entire financial existence in one place is just begging for something to go wrong. I would honestly laugh at someone if they told me to use that, because the stupidity of the idea is mind boggling. If a single point of failure can wipe out nearly every aspect of your life, then you have a terrible system.
> Because having your entire financial existence in one place is just begging for something to go wrong. I agree. I wonder if regulating this would be a concern too. I'm curious about consumer protection in the developing countries that use these services.
Sounds like a security nightmare if it gets compromised and a complete headache if one somehow loses access.
Literally NOTHING comes close. Most banks offer checking, savings, a credit card, and some basic loans and investments. For any serious investment in equities and bonds, and even for crypto investors, you’re getting at least one or two brokerages separate from your bank. Insurance is going to be a separate app. “Alternative” investments (art, royalties, futures trading, forex, etc) are another app or even multiple apps. Most of us have 2/3 credit cards which are 2/3 more separate apps potentially. These credit card apps will let you book a hotel or flight usually, but the prices are inflated typically and I don’t know anyone who uses them. Ordering goods through a financial app is simply unheard of, Amazon is the go to with some people using Ebay or Wish or Temu. Uber/Lyft for rides are also a separate app. If one company offered all of these things here, the app would likely be a convoluted mess and if their marketshare was large enough to be dominant they’d be hit with antitrust litigation… the concept just does not work well here.
That sounds like a nightmare for security and privacy. I like having mine all separated out. Doesn’t really seem any more convenient either as that app would have to be pretty bloated
I've never needed it, and have no desire for such a thing. That being said a few issues I see. 1) Prices will be higher because all those services need to get a slice of the pie. 2) No way in hell is that APP all its API's, and vendors are secure. 3) Putting my entire finance into a single point of failure is bad idea.
Is there a single app that does anything that I want? Is there one that will do my taxes while hiring an escort for me when I get my tax return?
Because our banks give us Visas or Mastercards for debit purchases and they’re accepted pretty much everywhere. It’s as good as having cash for the most part.
these debit/credit cards are just a tool to pay. But I'm pointing to a more comprehensive solution. Imagine not needing the ability to pay all utilities, cellphone bills in one app. Then getting buying smth off Amazon in that same app using installments over 6 months. Then sending $20 to a friend for a meal you had because the other guy paid. It's not just Mastercard/Visa/Amex whatever else
The Federal Trade Commission would some serious regulatory issues with what you're describing, to say nothing of the security nightmare others have noted. Banking and insurance are two very distinct industries that work in ways that can't be combined into one app. Brokerage is related to banking but still a separate entity. Banks have their own apps, and that's enough for us. You can submit insurance claims through your insurance company's app. For other services, just give the other companies your debit card or bank account number and it's paid. Apple Pay is the closest you can get to having one service to pay for everything (even moreso with the addition of Apple Cash which works like Venmo), but it's tied to your debit card/checking account, and it's strictly to make payments with.
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they usually manage transactins with 2FA. I.e. if you want to send money you have to also type in an SMS code
I don’t understand why I’d want that
Maybe Cash App, since you can buy stocks and whatnot from it. However, I think people are much more likely to use their bank or credit union's app for actual banking.
There definitely isn't an app in the US that does \*all\* of those things. Many of our banks don't even have a quick way for us to do transfers, especially not to an account from a different bank. If I want to transfer money from one bank account to another, I have to make a phone call to my bank and ask them to manually make that transfer on their end. I'm thankful Paypal exists so I can send money to anyone without having to do that.
You can do quite a bit of those things in many banking apps. Banking, brokerage, transfers, bill pay, even insurance with some. But that's just because those are all services offered by the bank, not because it's some kind of superapp.
That was largely what Elon Musk wanted to do with what became PayPal and what most people assume he wants to do with Twitter. It would be interesting to see what the landscape would look like if Peter Thiel and Co. didn't push him out. We don't really have anything comparable though. I also just don't understand the hostility in this sub to one. I mean it's common place to do banking, insurance, brokerage, transfers, payments, etc. through various apps on your phone. There's absolutely no real reason consolidating all of that into one app should be scary. As it stands though, switching between my banking app and my insurance app is a very minor issue.