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this is Uber offering drivers car loans and, something I find myself irrationally shocked by, Amazon marketing its own payday lending services to its warehouse workers (bill.com also offers factoring, taking a % of my money to pay me 'early'

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Lina Khan

@linakhanFTC

Dec 22, 2021

2. Namely, expanding into payments could enable Big Tech firms to entrench their market positions & data advantage; could raise risks of algorithmic bias & discrimination; and could concentrate risk, creating single points of failure.

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3:17 PM · Dec 22, 2021

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but it's the atmosphere in which Edge offering BNPL support (for a non Microsoft payment service) at the same level as support for credit cards instead of leaving users to install an extension got so much backlash; crossing the line between tools and banking services is emotive

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One thing this FTC statement doesn't seem to full grasp (though I'm sure they'll figure it out) is that most of these programs aren't actually run by Big Tech. They're white-labeled services. Amazon payday lending uses Wisely, Uber & Apple use Green Dot/GoBank a lot, etc.

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the bit I think is dodgy is pushing the financing to employees; will be fascinated to see if the FTC can dig out what cut Uber and Amazon get (if any)