---------- Forwarded message --------- From: N Sekar <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Dec 21, 2025, 11:53 AM Subject: Fwd - This happens To: Kerala Iyer <[email protected]>, Narayanaswamy Sekar < [email protected]>, Suryanarayana Ambadipudi <[email protected]>, Rangarajan T.N.C. <[email protected]>, Chittanandam V. R. < [email protected]>, Mathangi K. Kumar <[email protected]>, Mani APS <[email protected]>, Rama (Iyer 123 Group) <[email protected]>, Srinivasan Sridharan <[email protected]>, Surendra Varma < [email protected]>
*Any surprise that Tata holds the franchise for Starbucks in India. Starbucks is the largest unregulated bank in America.* They are hoarding almost $2 billion of your money. And it's completely by design. They don't just sell coffee. They've built one of the largest legal money schemes in history... Right now, Starbucks is holding $1.85 billion in gift card and app balances. Money that customers loaded but never spent. To put that in perspective: 85% of US banks have less than $1 billion in total deposits. Starbucks holds more customer cash than most actual banks. But here's the difference: Banks pay you interest to hold your money. Starbucks pays you nothing. Banks have to keep cash reserves in case you want to withdraw. Starbucks just needs to stock coffee and muffins. Banks are regulated by the federal government. Starbucks answers to no one. The CEO of South Korea's third-largest bank said it publicly: "Starbucks is an unregulated bank, not a coffee company." So how did they build this financial empire? It started with gift cards in 2001. Simple idea: load money, buy coffee later. But Starbucks noticed something interesting. People weren't redeeming all their gift cards. A $25 card might have $3.47 left on it forever. That leftover money? Pure profit. They call it "breakage." In 2024 alone, Starbucks made $207 million from money people loaded but never spent. Free money. No coffee served. But they didn't stop there. They engineered the entire system to maximize breakage. First, they made gift cards year-round items instead of just holiday gifts. Then they launched the Starbucks app. The app forces you to pre-load money before ordering. You can't just pay $6.84 for your latte. You have to load $10 minimum. Now you've got $3.16 sitting in their system. That's not a bug. That's the business model. Then they added auto-reload. Set it up once, and Starbucks automatically charges your card whenever your balance drops. Money is flowing in constantly. Most people forget it's even happening. Then they added rewards. You earn more points by paying with your Starbucks balance than with a credit card. So you're incentivized to keep money locked in their system. The trap is airtight. A consumer complaint filed in Washington State called it an "involuntary subscription." Their exact words: "This Catch-22 traps customers in a cycle that resembles an involuntary subscription." You load money to buy coffee. You have a leftover balance. You come back to use it. You load more money. The cycle never ends. Think about what Starbucks actually built: They collect billions in deposits. They pay no interest. They have no withdrawal obligations. They keep 10-13% of all deposits as pure profit. They're not regulated as a financial institution. Any bank would kill for this model. But they'd go to prison for trying it. Starbucks does it in plain sight.... Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer <https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=nativeplacement&c=US_Acquisition_YMktg_315_SearchOrgConquer_EmailSignature&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=US_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=100002039&af_sub5=C01_Email_Static_&af_ios_store_cpp=0c38e4b0-a27e-40f9-a211-f4e2de32ab91&af_android_url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yahoo.mobile.client.android.mail&listing=search_organize_conquer> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CABC81ZeRQLuFvY%3Dur9dwasBqqtB16kh0hqbXZkM7nC77RFjBHA%40mail.gmail.com.
