The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series)

by Peter H. Diamandis

Right now, most of our money sits in banks, and mostly, we’re abused for the privilege. On average, we pay $360 a year in banking fees. The larger banks, meanwhile, average $30 billion a year in overdraft charges alone. But where things go truly sideways is what the banks do with our money. Banks get to invest our money, typically at significant profit, wherever they see fit. This often includes projects that don’t align with customers’ values. Wells Fargo, for example, lost a ton of business when they were outed as major backers of the controversial Dakota Pipeline. So while the bank is making bank, not only is your money not working for you, it might actually be working against you. Good Money does the opposite, in a half-dozen different ways. Technically a mobile wallet, Good Money lives on your phone and holds both regular and crypto currencies. It can be used at any ATM, with zero annual fees, no ATM charges, and an interest rate a hundred times larger than most banks. Customers also become owners. Put money into Good Money and you get an equity share in return, while the company funnels 50 percent of their profits into impact investments and charitable donations. With this strategy, Good Money is targeting people who prefer value-driven companies, and the 40 million Americans who have been driven out of the traditional banking system by overdraft fees and blackball lists. But the largest mobile market is a third category entirely, the unbanked, those without any plac...