--- title: America’s Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won’t description: Why the web's biggest brands don't start banks, why black girls get expelled from school so much and more. canonical: https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-05T16:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:01.785Z article:section: Ideas og:title: America's Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won't og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: America's Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won't twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # America's Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won't by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 5, 2016 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 5, 2016 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Why don’t Google, Amazon and Facebook start banks?**](http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2016/05/05/banks-google-facebook-amazon/) By Matthew Hussey in the Next Web **2\.** [**Delivering humanitarian aid to refugees is hard. Let’s give them pre-loaded debit cards instead.**](http://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/forget-blankets-give-refugees-credit-cards/68511) By Laura Secorun Palet in Ozy **3\.** [**Why are black girls more likely to be expelled from school?**](http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a36115/black-girls-in-school/) By Mattie Kahn in Elle **4\.** [**It’s time for the FDA to define ‘natural.’**](http://time.com/4317988/fda-natural-definition/) By Paul Greenberg and Jason J. Czarnezki in Time **5\.** [**Better government regulations can boost productivity, if we let them.**](http://www.fastcompany.com/3059489/the-future-of-work/why-government-regulations-help-workers-productivity) By Vivian Giang in Fast Company  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/"},"headline":"America's Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won't","datePublished":"2016-05-05T16:00:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:01.785Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/","keywords":["Innovation","Education","facebook","Race","Refugees","FDA","Regulation"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4319538/americas-biggest-digital-brands-can-start-banks-but-wont/","name":"America's Biggest Digital Brands Can Start Banks — But Won't"}}]}] ```