AFAIK there is no real SuperApp in the US, but my question is: which app comes closest? I.e. Cash App, Venmo?
For reference – SuperApp is an app that allows you to do everything finance: banking, insurance, brokerage, transfers, payments. In some countries they even add taxes, taxi, ordering goods & food, travel purchases etc.
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A Superapp sounds absolutely insane. Is it like offered by the government?
A lot of the banking/payments stuff can be handled via a bank’s app. But absolutely am I not hailing a cab or ordering Taco Bell delivery at midnight via the Chase app.
Maybe Cash App, since you can buy stocks and whatnot from it. However, I think people are much more likely to use their bank or credit union’s app for actual banking.
There definitely isn’t an app in the US that does *all* of those things. Many of our banks don’t even have a quick way for us to do transfers, especially not to an account from a different bank. If I want to transfer money from one bank account to another, I have to make a phone call to my bank and ask them to manually make that transfer on their end. I’m thankful Paypal exists so I can send money to anyone without having to do that.
Literally NOTHING comes close. Most banks offer checking, savings, a credit card, and some basic loans and investments. For any serious investment in equities and bonds, and even for crypto investors, you’re getting at least one or two brokerages separate from your bank. Insurance is going to be a separate app. “Alternative” investments (art, royalties, futures trading, forex, etc) are another app or even multiple apps. Most of us have 2/3 credit cards which are 2/3 more separate apps potentially. These credit card apps will let you book a hotel or flight usually, but the prices are inflated typically and I don’t know anyone who uses them. Ordering goods through a financial app is simply unheard of, Amazon is the go to with some people using Ebay or Wish or Temu. Uber/Lyft for rides are also a separate app. If one company offered all of these things here, the app would likely be a convoluted mess and if their marketshare was large enough to be dominant they’d be hit with antitrust litigation… the concept just does not work well here.
Nothing comes close. A bank’s app is probably the closest, but it will be clumsy for ordering food or daily purchases.
For reference, what’s the best “super app” that’s available elsewhere?
I absolutely would not trust a superapp with all my data. What if your acc gets suspended and everyone else uses the superapp? You’re just fucked?
Hell I even have my my money separated in different financial institutions.
Is there a single app that does anything that I want? Is there one that will do my taxes while hiring an escort for me when I get my tax return?
I disagree with the concept of an app like this, even if one existed I would not use it
I honestly hate that idea. Sounds like a security and privacy nightmare.
Sounds like a security nightmare if it gets compromised and a complete headache if one somehow loses access.
Because our banks give us Visas or Mastercards for debit purchases and they’re accepted pretty much everywhere. It’s as good as having cash for the most part.
I’m a software engineer. We’ve had some companies approach us about helping them build such apps. Everyone involved knew it would cost tens of millions to build, so we started with some simple market research.
What we found was that a large majority of Americans would never trust or want such an app. It was definitive too, over 80% of participants. The biggest reasons were:
– They would not trust their banking to a company other than their bank and wouldn’t trust their bank with anything other than their money (and most don’t even trust them for that iirc).
– They believe it would put too much power into one company.
– There is no trust that the government could build nor properly regulate such a thing
– People prefer being able to choose their vendors
– They believed it would drive prices up to account for the cut of each transaction the app would likely require
– They do not believe their friends would use such a thing meaning the social aspects of something like WeChat aren’t as strong
There was a laundry list of reasons but those were the bug ones from what I remember.
The companies we did this research for lost all interest in it after seeing our findings. Given what we saw, it’s bizarre that Musk is pushing so hard to make Twitter such an app (especially when most people already do not trust Twitter or him)
ETA: I did not take part in the research phase. I was part of the sales effort and was the one who first recommended we start with some basic market research, however.
You can do quite a bit of those things in many banking apps. Banking, brokerage, transfers, bill pay, even insurance with some. But that’s just because those are all services offered by the bank, not because it’s some kind of superapp.
That sounds like a nightmare for security and privacy. I like having mine all separated out. Doesn’t really seem any more convenient either as that app would have to be pretty bloated
I’ve never needed it, and have no desire for such a thing.
That being said a few issues I see.
1) Prices will be higher because all those services need to get a slice of the pie.
2) No way in hell is that APP all its API’s, and vendors are secure.
3) Putting my entire finance into a single point of failure is bad idea.
The Federal Trade Commission would some serious regulatory issues with what you’re describing, to say nothing of the security nightmare others have noted. Banking and insurance are two very distinct industries that work in ways that can’t be combined into one app. Brokerage is related to banking but still a separate entity. Banks have their own apps, and that’s enough for us. You can submit insurance claims through your insurance company’s app. For other services, just give the other companies your debit card or bank account number and it’s paid.
Apple Pay is the closest you can get to having one service to pay for everything (even moreso with the addition of Apple Cash which works like Venmo), but it’s tied to your debit card/checking account, and it’s strictly to make payments with.
Nothing close.
Americans tend to worry about “single point of failure” scenarios a lot. That sort of app wouldn’t be very popular or desired because everyone would be too worried about what would happen if the app or their access to it, were to break.
What happens if hackers get my password? What happens if they get lazy and start cutting customer support? What happens if they go bankrupt?!
No one company would be trusted to be allowed to have the much “power” over an individuals life. If you split it up into multiple services, it matters less if one goes wrong, because you don’t lose everything.
That was largely what Elon Musk wanted to do with what became PayPal and what most people assume he wants to do with Twitter. It would be interesting to see what the landscape would look like if Peter Thiel and Co. didn’t push him out.
We don’t really have anything comparable though.
I also just don’t understand the hostility in this sub to one. I mean it’s common place to do banking, insurance, brokerage, transfers, payments, etc. through various apps on your phone. There’s absolutely no real reason consolidating all of that into one app should be scary. As it stands though, switching between my banking app and my insurance app is a very minor issue.
I don’t understand why I’d want that