The remaining GE is breaking into three companies.
It marks the end of an era, but the beginning of a new one.
๐๐ง๐๐ ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐จ๐ง๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐ซ ๐ ๐ข๐ง๐๐ง๐๐
GE started to participate in consumer finance in the 1990s.
That is when Jack Welch found the general management approach can be effectively applied to every industry.
With GEโs AAA ratings, it was easy to access funding. Then all GE needed to do is to hire some smart people and apply a rigorous management framework.
It worked. It worked so well. At one time, consumer finance and commercial finance accounted for more than 50% of GEโs profit.
That caused concerns from investors during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. Jeff Immelt, the successor of Jack Welch, eventually made a strategic shift back to GEโs industrial roots.
GE has provided many great leaders in financial services and other industries. The spin-out consumer finance division is todayโs Synchrony, the largest private label credit provider.
Synchrony is essentially a lending-as-a-service provider - a predecessor of todayโs banking-as-a-service and embedded finance providers.
The conglomerate GE does not exist any more - but the individual GE business continues to live.
๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐ซ๐ฌ
While global heavyweights like GE, Citi, and HSBC retreat from the โbeing everything everywhereโ model, new entrants carry on the ambitions.
๐๐ข๐ ๐๐๐๐ก๐ฌ, with ample funds and cutting-edge technology, are eyeing consumer finance. Growing up successfully in the web 2.0 era, expanding into the finance area is a natural move - to maximize their knowledge of consumer behaviors and capture more value from the huge user base.
Then you have ๐๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐๐ก๐ฌ, like Klarna and Revolut, which bring new products to every geographic market at a speed unseen before. They are not shy away from aspiring to be the next global superbanks.
Letโs not forget the up-rising ๐๐ฎ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐๐ช๐ฏ๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ, where ๐ง๐จ๐ง-๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐ซ๐ฌ have much easier access to infrastructure to enter the financial arena. Do they stay to their core non-financial businesses and be satisfied with their cuts for distribution, or do they want to become lenders themselves? The choices are theirs to make.
What will happen at the end of this decade?
Would we see a new generation of financial superstores - who provides every financial service everywhere?
Would we see any new non-financial brand, like GE once was, that will build a meaningful business in consumer finance, outside its core business?
Only time will tell.
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