Google is preparing to launch a bank account in partnership with Citigroup next year.

Code-named Cache, the Wall Street Journal reported that the current accounts will not be branded as Google.

“Our approach is going to be to partner deeply with banks and the financial system,” said Google’s general manager for payments Caesar Sengupta. “It may be the slightly longer path, but it’s more sustainable.”

He promised that Google would not sell checking account users’ financial data, in the same way that it does not share data from Google Pay with advertisers.

BigTech’s long-warned move into financial services has finally started to happen in recent months, albeit running into problems with regulators and consumers.

Several partners pulled out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency after the authorities on either side of the Atlantic stated their opposition, while Apple’s credit card partner, Goldman Sachs, has been sued for allegedly offering discriminatory credit limits.

Sankar Krishnan, executive vice president for banking and capital markets at Capgemini, commented: “Amazon captured consumers share of mind with their one click experience which banks are trying hard to replicate - Google’s entry into financial services is a possible social experiment to personalise banking like no one has done before, given that Google has the ability to use data very differently to power financial services.”

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