Washington, D.C. – The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to Google’s major relaunch of Google Pay and its announcement that it will be partnering with 11 banks to launch a new kind of bank account in 2021.

“The continuing push by Big Tech deeper and deeper into banking is at once alarming and totally unsurprising. It is a nightmarish example of the ways monopolies like Google can bully their way into new industries and it will open the door to all kinds of abuse,” said Graham Steele, Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. “With this expanded banking and payments business, Google can further consolidate its market power by offering preferential terms to customers, retailers, and banks for using its full suite of marketplace and financial services. This will allow Google to commingle its digital marketplace with consumers’ financial data, centralizing sensitive information, raising privacy and pricing concerns, and increasing the risks of data breaches and abuse.”

“The array and complexity of these products and services has the potential to confuse consumers and undermine important consumer protections,” added Steele. “We’ve long sought to keep banking and commerce separate. Google Pay’s proposed expansion provides a crystal-clear example as to why that remains an important policy for reining in the power of Big Tech today.”

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Economic Liberties works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. AELP believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.