(Did you know that the English word bank supposedly comes from the old Italian word banca (for bench)?
An Indian couple has bought a small bank in Weir, Kansas, USA, and is using it to innovate in the online financial payments / money transfers space (while preserving and improving the existing brick-and-mortar business of the bank). The site through they allow faster / cheaper payments or money transfers from the US to India (and currently, or soon, other countries), is globalremit.com. Their rate for sending a payment under $1000 USD is $2.50, which works out to 0.25 percent. For above $1000, it is free (disclaimer: all this is according to what I saw on the site recently).
Suresh Ramamurthi earlier worked at Google on the Checkout product, and Suchitra Padmanabhan earlier worked at Lehman Brothers and Bankers Trust.
I saw this news via this tweet by Quentin Hardy (@qhardy), Deputy Tech Editor, The New York Times. (Saw it from a retweet by Bernard Lunn.)
The tweet goes thusly:
"Guy from India learns payments at Google, buys tiny Kansas bank, transforms money. Great, from @nathanielpopper dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/sma…"
And here is the New York Times article referred to in the tweet:
Small Bank in Kansas Is a Financial Testing Ground
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