Google, The Next Bank?

"According to Google's senior vice president for engineering and research Alan Eustace, the company's fundamental business strategy is "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". While that may sound relatively benign, previous extensions into new markets have often proved controversial."

As reported at ITWire, it appears that the big question among financial professionals at a conference held by Forrester Research in London was whether all the data Google has amassed would allow Google to enter the financial market. After all, Google already has the Google Checkout payment service.

Would you "bank at Google"? I know that I wouldn't -- not just because I want to be able to step into the local branch bank if there is a problem, but also because Google already has too much personal data on people. This would position Google as an even larger target for hackers.