Google has stopped working on its digital bank accounts for Google Pay users, which could have significantly strengthened the company's position in the financial services industry, Interfax reports, citing The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The partners of the project, announced in November 2019, were to become, in particular, Citibank Inc and Stanford Federal Credit Union, which planned to serve Plex accounts, the digital accounts of Google's users.

The new offerings, called Plex accounts, would sync with Google Pay, carry both Google and bank branding and provide a digital dashboard of where and how users spent and saved. Plex was billed as a new way to bank, with an emphasis on simplicity and financial wellness and without monthly or overdraft fees.

The project was initially expected to debut in 2020. The April departure of the Google Pay executive Caesar Sengupta, who championed the project, prompted Google to pull the plug on Plex, people familiar with the matter told WSJ.

They said banking regulators supported Plex and didn’t play a role in its demise. Still, Google informed regulators it wasn’t moving forward with the product before it told all of its banking partners, some of the people said.

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