A bank spokesperson said the company had since poured “significant” resources into bolstering its security and otherwise addressing orders from both the OCC and the Federal Reserve.

The payout isn’t small, but it might not make many victims happy. The breach exposed sensitive details like addresses, reported income and (in some cases) account numbers and credit scores. Capital One did provide free credit monitoring and identity theft protection after the incident, but the payout still amounts to about 75 cents per person affected in North America. Like the Equifax breach, the compensation may seem small compared to the security precautions and stress inflicted on affected people.

Today, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) announced that it has detained the hacker, known as Sanix, who caused a stir last year for trying to sell a database with 773 million email addresses and 21 million unique passwords. Officials say that 87-gigabyte database was only a fraction of the stolen data Sanix collected. He allegedly had seven similar databases, which held personal and financial data from residents in the European Union and North America.

The stolen data included email passwords, bank card PIN codes, e-wallets of cryptocurrencies, PayPal accounts and info about computers hacked for botnets and DDoS attacks. In a raid of Sanix’s residence, law enforcement confiscated equipment with two terabytes of stolen information.

Samsung wants to do more with payments than offer a virtual prepaid card. The company plans to grow Samsung Pay this summer by introducing a new “experience” that includes an “innovative” debit card supported by a cash management account. Details are only slated to arrive in the “coming weeks,” but it’ll have help from the financial startup SoFi.

It’s not a surprising move for Samsung. Apple has offered a credit card since 2019, while Huawei is following suit. Google is believed to be working on a debit card of its own. If Samsung doesn’t offer some kind of payment card, it might miss out if these cards turn out to be successful.

In a response to TechCrunch, a Google spokeperson didn’t directly acknowledge plans for the card and instead repeated the statement it issued on the banking leak in November, when it confirmed it was “exploring” partnerships for smart checking accounts in Google Pay. At the time, it mentioned that its “lead partners” were Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Union, both of whom are expected to cooperate with Google on the debit card.

There are plenty of incentives for Google to dive into debit cards. Like Apple and other tech giants, it can use services like this to generate a steady stream of revenue on top of its existing businesses. And remember, Google is an advertising giant — it could use data to improve its ad measurement and even target ads, at least for those customers who opt to share more info.

Whether or not people bite isn’t certain. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly puts a damper on adoption as people are largely staying inside. And yes, privacy could easily be a concern. Many are already concerned that Google is too eager to track users and otherwise pervade every aspect of their lives. Whether that worry is merited or not, would-be customers may be reluctant to sign up and give Google a potential peek at their financial status. Still, this could be ideal for people who are already fully invested in Google’s ecosystem and want a relatively frictionless way to shop.

The offer is in line with efforts by banks and other financial institutions to address the sudden surge of people who are out of work or otherwise taking a monetary hit due to the pandemic. Apple, Goldman Sachs and others are still expecting customers to pay eventually, but don’t want to risk financial ruin for legions of customers in the process.

The conditions only got worse for borrowers who missed their payments. Falling short by just a day could raise the APR as high as 876 percent. Also, the apps reportedly scraped phone contacts to harass family, friends and others with calls and texts in hopes this would pressure customers into paying up. These same notices often threatened legal action. And the consequences aren’t trivial. Many users are young people whose financial futures and even careers may be in jeopardy with credit trouble on their records.

Hindenburg further suggested that Opera was using the loan apps to artificially prop up financial growth despite lower profit margins than its main browser business, and that the company has poured millions of dollars into apps and entities owned by its CEO despite questionable disclosures and business practices.

We’ve asked Google and Opera for comment. If the report is accurate, though, Opera is in trouble. Google could easily pull the loan apps (if not more) from the Play Store, and Opera’s reputation will be trashed. That would be good for the future of potential loan targets — just not for the company’s long-term health.

You can’t escape stories of tech companies dipping their toes into banking. This year, Google revealed it’s working on a check-clearing platform for 2020, and Facebook relaunched its own payments platform. Apple launched a credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs’ Marcus digital bank, too. As hardware sales and ad revenues dry up, these companies could see banking as another way to make money.

Alex Drummond is MD and Partner at Boston Consulting Group and co-author of the 2019 Global Payments report. He believes that Wall Street is safe from Silicon Valley, now and forever, and that the technology industry’s moves into banking are just another way to keep us using their services and features. Apple Card, for instance, is used to “help reinforce Apple Pay,” rather than stealing Goldman’s lunch. The tell, as far as he’s concerned, is in how the cashback structure works.

On purchases from Apple and other selected retailers, Apple Card offers three percent cashback. Use Apple Pay anywhere else and you’ll get two percent, and the card itself exists mostly to funnel purchases through the card in places that don’t support Apple Pay. According to a study by Bain, cited by CNBC, Apple Pay has less than 10 percent uptake in the US, a problem for the wider iPhone ecosystem. Moonshot’s Mike Edmonds agrees, writing that the card “locks in customers via the iPhone” and “drives more uptake of Apple Pay.”

But if you can, to some extent, show how owning an iPhone will actually save or make you cash, then you’ve got another reason to buy one.

If you want to understand how cards can engender loyalty, Drummond pointed at Uber’s card. “Uber is flying under the radar here,” he said, with a card that offers six percent cashback on gas purchases for the highest tier of Uber Pro drivers. And making such a crucial component of being an Uber driver cheaper is another way to keep them working for Uber. Especially when rival companies, like Lyft and Postmates, want to recruit them.

Drummond feels similarly about Google’s banking project, which will doubtless have deep hooks into Google Pay. Yes, Google will get lots of information to analyze, but the greater value is hooking people’s accounts to Google’s commerce systems. And, as we covered last week, Facebook Pay is also designed to keep its users and their cash rattling around its own products. This isn’t about making money on day-to-day transactions, but about keeping you inside Facebook or Google.

What’s weird about projects like Apple Card is how they swim against the tide of most banking operations. Generally, credit cards in the US either charge you a regular fee or have punitive interest charges and fines for going overdrawn. Apple’s app actively encourages to pay back more than the minimum each month to avoid incurring extra fees and won’t upsell you to (historically more profitable) loan deals. In some ways, the banks aren’t making as much money from these partnerships as they could.

Another issue is that these banks often find themselves playing second banana to the tech companies they’re working with. The Apple Card is described in its commercials as “created by Apple, not a bank,” with no reference to Marcus, the Goldman division behind it. Similarly, there’s no JPMorgan Chase logo on the front of your Amazon-branded Visa.

So why do banks get involved? “They tolerate it,” says Drummond, “because it offers access to customers.” Even if these institutions can’t earn big money on these accounts, Marcus was given exclusive access to millions of American iPhone owners overnight. And with an advert for Apple Card on every iOS wallet, the bank earns millions of dollars in free advertising. Goldman is happy, too, telling CNBC that it had “the most successful credit card launch ever.”

There’s always a risk that these tech companies will spend a few years learning how to run a bank and then cut the real banks out of the picture. Drummond doesn’t think it’s likely because of the levels of regulation that banks have to abide by, something tech companies hate to do. Plus, the risks of becoming a “balance sheet business” is something few businesses want to do.

If you’re curious about what a “balance sheet business” is, it’s all about how companies hold their money. A lot of businesses don’t like to hold a lot of cash in their checking accounts because they want that money for investments. Banks, on the other hand, are obliged by law and practice to hold a good chunk of deposits for their customers to access at any time.

And when those two forms of business come into contact with each other, the result can be pretty chaotic. Drummond cited the example of PayPal Credit, in which the (ostensibly) tech company began offering lines of credit to customers. Suddenly, it had to hold large quantities of cash and debt on hand, which investors would have preferred to put to use elsewhere.

Back in 2017, Motley Fool said that PayPal was forced to hold up to half of its cash to serve those customers. Shareholders were getting antsy about what PayPal could be doing with that cash, and so in mid-2018, they forced PayPal to sell its credit business to Synchrony Financial, a real bank. Drummond believes that no tech company will attempt to repeat PayPal’s mistake.

Instead of replicating Paypal’s missteps, Google’s check-cashing service, due for 2020, will probably help you get your cash faster. And Facebook will try to hook you into its network to buy things on Instagram and split bills with your friends. If the best way to keep you within their ecosystem is to partner with a Wall Street bank, then that’s what they’ll do, even if it means half-pretending to be a bank themselves.

Image Credits: Facebook Pay (Chesnot via Getty Images), Amazon Visa (Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images).

According to Zuckerberg, Facebook is “committed to taking the time to get this right.” But he also points out that China could reveal a similar system in the coming months. “If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed,” Zuckerberg’s prepared statement reads.

Supposedly, Facebook isn’t just motivated by self-interest. “Over the long term, if it means more people transact on our platforms, that would be good for our business,” the statement says. “But even if it doesn’t, it could help people everywhere.” The company believes Libra could benefit the billion people around the world who don’t have access to a bank account, but could through a mobile phone. That includes 14 million people in the US.

Zuckerberg will also assure the committee that Facebook is not looking to create a sovereign currency. “Like existing online payment systems, it’s a way for people to transfer money.”

Just last week, the Libra Association — an independent non-profit established to govern the cryptocurrency — lost another member. It’s now down to 21, and big names like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and eBay have all left. Facebook doesn’t seem deterred, but it’s not a great look for Libra. We’ll see what Congress has to say.

The bank is likewise considering proposals to count cryptocurrencies toward international reserves that have plummeted in recent years.

It’s not certain where Petroleos got the bitcoin and ethereum, let alone how much it has. There’s also no guarantee that companies would accept such a move when crypto’s relative anonymity and the potential for money laundering leads many other banks to hold off. That’s not even including the potential for further trade restrictions. This is a Hail Mary effort to sustain Venezuela’s economy (and thus the Maduro government), and it may ultimately amount to a risky experiment even if it goes ahead.

In response, Libra reiterated its earlier stance that it “welcome[s] this engagement” with politicians and regulators, and that it “deliberately” set out a long launch schedule to discuss issues and modify its plans based on feedback.

The conversation might not go the way Facebook and the Libra team hope. Coeuré in particular has warned that Libra has to clear a “very high” bar, and EU finance ministers in particular have worried that cryptocurrencies like Libra could destabilize finance and undercut the authority of government banks. France and Germany have both argued that Libra should be blocked in the EU as it would challenge the “monetary sovereignty” of governments.

Facebook has pitched Libra as a way to democratize money, providing banking to many first-timers and creating a format that’s independent of any one country. However, it’s that last part that has officials and critics worried. While Libra is a “stablecoin” that should be pegged to the value of conventional currency, it could give Facebook and the Libra Association a tremendous amount of clout if it takes off. It may not have much choice but to make concessions if it wants the currency to be widely available, and even that isn’t guaranteed.