Can you imagine?
What would it look like if a bank acquired a major social network?
Now I am not talking about a bank having a token Facebook Page and sending a few moderated Tweets.
I am talking about a full on merger between a bank and a social network.
After all this talk about Facebook and Google becoming banks, I got inspired to call a meeting with Thomas Power, the founder of Ecademy, the business to business social network, who created that famous Bank of Facebook video...
I also thought I would pull out the video camera during a few of my presentations and meetings and get the opinion of Mike Harris, the founder of Egg and First Direct, to do some fun speculation.
We live in the digital, social transparent age after all right?
But anyway...
Thomas Power thinks that Facebook will have a go at creating a worldwide monopoly in financial services.
As crazy as that sounded, with the launch of Facebook Credits and their interest in Lending Club and Prosper, it does not seem too 'out there' anymore.
Mike Harris thinks that the real threat to banking and financial services will come from technological innovation from non-banks and peer to peer lending.
Then we have Google who has already made the first move with the launch of Google Checkout and Google Wallet.
Could the latest attempt at a social network, Google+, be a fully transparent way of dealing with their banking customers in the future?
Could it be a lead generation strategy for their move into financial services?
Amazon Payments have made a move, and with that many credit card details stored on their system, what would a bigger move into financial services look like for them?
What would happen if iTunes only started to accept payments for Apps in iCurrency, like Facebook has for it's game devlopers with Facebook Credits?
We live in interesting times, and I would love to hear your speculations on how financial services and social networking could merge?
After you watch the video, leave a comment and let me know how crazy this might be...