I wanna talk about why all these software companies are spending $50 million plus and doing all this paperwork to become a bank

I wanna talk about why all these software companies are spending $50 million plus and doing all this paperwork to become a bank. So let's start in the beginning. In 2020, Varo was the first software company to become a bank and ever since then the numbers keep going up. Coinbase, Mercury got their conditional approval. SoFi bought a bank to become a bank. The co-founder of Plaid bought a bank to become a bank. Why are they doing that? Well, you have to remember that banks are the most powerful participants in the financial infrastructure ecosystem. If you're not a bank you can't offer wires. If you're not a bank, you can't offer Zelle. If you're not a bank, you can't issue cards to your own consumers. If you're not a bank you can't hold deposits. If you're not a bank, you can't even process transactions because card networks like Visa and Mastercard will only talk to acquiring and issuing banks. So before SoFi became a bank, not only would it have to share interchange revenue, which is the fee that banks charge merchants every time you swipe your card, so it had to share its interchange revenue with its numerous bank partners and then it also couldn't even make interest off the deposits because the money was with the actual bank. Another reason why software companies will want to become banks is because of speed. If you have ever worked with a bank before and had to use their license, you know that everything has to go through them from the text messages that you send your customers to the verbiage on your website, the bank has to approve everything because their license is on the line. So if you become a bank, not only do you have to not answer to anybody but the federal government and you can offer Zell girl, I too would become a bank.