> In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company
I'm not sure if you are missing contacts or providing irony. But the fact is payment processors and banking in general is extremely heavily regulated.
A few years ago when you saw almost all banks and payment companies starting to crack down on spending money to buy and sell cryptocurrency, that was to no small extent because federal regulators gave them a little side-eye about the subject. No specific regulations, to be clear, but a few pointed questions.
When every means of sending money overseas demands clear documentation of your identity, That's not so much because banks feel the need to know every detail of your business; it is strictly mandated by federal law. And while my examples all involve US banking, most governments around the world are similarly strict.
Todays finance regulators require you to not do business with some people, often without good evidence.
For example, if you do business with wikileaks, you will get a nudge from the regulator to 'reduce the number of high risk clients' you work with... They're not saying it's illegal, but they're also saying they're going to find some regulation to prosecute you with unless you do as they say.
It's a sad state of affairs when these kind of regulations aren't written in stone, but instead are flexible and applied on a case-by-case basis.
There are different types of regulation. The one that exists now and primarily is regulation such that individual human people cannot transfer or store in to large amounts of money without federal investigation of the source and identity. Banking and processors comply with these rules and generally go overboard making things hard for human people so they can keep their own corporate asses safe.
But the type of regulation that is needed is regulation of the banks and payment processors themselves. Not of their clients or things related to their clients.
I'm not sure if you are missing contacts or providing irony. But the fact is payment processors and banking in general is extremely heavily regulated.
A few years ago when you saw almost all banks and payment companies starting to crack down on spending money to buy and sell cryptocurrency, that was to no small extent because federal regulators gave them a little side-eye about the subject. No specific regulations, to be clear, but a few pointed questions.
When every means of sending money overseas demands clear documentation of your identity, That's not so much because banks feel the need to know every detail of your business; it is strictly mandated by federal law. And while my examples all involve US banking, most governments around the world are similarly strict.