Car service company Uber has signed an agreement with the auto-investment company Betterment to offer individual retirement accounts for its drivers, the New York Times reported last week.
This follows on an announcement in March that Uber had partnered with Green Dot to offer “Uber Checking by GoBank” as a way to provide its divers with a mobile-based checking account that will also enable them to get paid more quickly.
What makes these announcements interesting is the larger trend that they are revealing about the way technology is reshaping the financial services landscape. Uber has provided individuals with a new way to access existing services by letting people call for and pay for rides using their mobile phone and a card on file. It has also provided a new way to let people earn money using their mobile phones and cars.
With these two announcements, Uber has shown how one tech company has tapped into the abilities of other tech companies to offer services that were once the province of traditional providers. They are using multiple providers and new tech to stitch together a suite that is designed to provide the same benefits of old school companies – taxis, banks, and investment providers – but in a new architecture.
Of course, this may prove to be a new, brittle architecture, given that Uber has stated its long term goal is to have a fleet of driverless cars.
Overview by Ben Jackson, Director, Prepaid Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
Read the Green Dot press announcement here
Read the New York Times Story here
