Yesterday, I was discussing this thing with my friend, either of us was not sure if it is possible in the light of international and local banking rules and regulations.
Please allow me to me share my thoughts with you guys as well.
What if a real bank is formed in UK, US or Canada (or some other first world country), which offer all the basic banking needs via online banking, nothing fancy. By basic I mean load account through ACH and wire, allow transfer to other accounts online, internationally usable debit card, withdrawal through ACH and wire.
Benefit is, it will be a real bank and you will have real account there on your own name, so money would actually be insured. So, people will trust even more.
Now the problems are:
1) Do international/local banking rules allow you to open an account of someone in India or Philippines without physically visiting the country/bank? Even if they provide legit document, attested by some local authority.
2) How would you decide if a user requesting an account is legit, or not? Will you enforce the law of referral? Or account owner must receive a certain amount from (known) sponsors per year to remain active or at least not get flag raised?
3) How tax thing will work? Especially for foreigners.
On the top of that, what would you guys prefer?
i) More hassle at start-up in terms of documents and stuff and increased security and reliability. (The Real Bank)
Or
ii) Less hassle at start-up but slightly decreased security, just like many other online services provide. (An online Payment Solution)
State problems, state solutions, share thoughts.