I think it's safe to say that Amazon's ambition is unlimited at this point in time. I fully expect them to jump into commercial banking in the near future
So there are fairly strong regulations on what other things a bank can do. I can't remember exactly what it entails. It's possible Amazon could get around that with holding company structure or something, but I'm not sure.
I agree with your general point though, maybe just not the bank part.
Edit1: It's not reg W, damn I cannot remember which section describes this. There's too many bank regs in the US.
Bank or bank holding can't own anything other than other fin, ag, or family stuff.
I'm still at sure to what extent this would stop Amazon from starting their own bank. (IANAL, but this was explained to me years ago by an expert on us federal banking regulation so I have hazy memories of it)
Aaaand I just wasted 15 minutes of my morning looking through the CFR on banking regulation, time to stop reading hackernews.
I used to work in a securities firm owned by a bank holding company in a role requiring being registered as a securities principal (legally responsible to supervise). It still took me several minutes to remember which regulations to look up.
Amazon doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of working around these regulations with the current administration. Trump hates Bezos. With a moderate Republican in power, they might be able to lobby their way to creating the precise loophole they needed (which would require legislation).
In the US, owning a bank changes the regulatory status of the entire legal entity structure. This cannot be evaded with shell companies, etc. Specifically, “any company that controls a bank” is a Bank Holding Company and is regulated by the Federal Reserve (regardless of where the controlled bank is chartered). Being regulated by the Fed is a big deal and they can and will poke around in your non-bank subsidiaries (which are, after all, assets of the Bank holding company).
What if there's one parent company whose subsidiaries include amazon and a bank? Since "amazon" itself isn't controlling the bank, it's not subject to said regulations.
Sure I'm not saying Amazon lacks the capacity, but rather that the CFR might actually prohibit a company owning both a bank and a massive commercial retail structure, etc etc.
