Yes they are banks, they charge transaction fees and interest on the BTC used by the bank to finance the ledger
and you admit this yourself in the link you provided.
~snip
off-block single point of failure banking hubs is not the solution and we are being feed problem-reaction-solution here.
Saw one or two of your other posts throughout the forum and you have this theme of Lightning Network consisting of banks... charging transaction fees and interest. At first I dismissed the "bank" term as your oversight, but now I am reading this, you're saying they're charging interest? So I have a few questions:
1. Where did you read about interest charges? I tried looking it up myself but perhaps I fail at research. Even the link hugeblack provides, which you say acknowledges this... doesn't?
If I understand you correctly, you mean to say that these hubs will charge people who connect it interest... I don't get the concept though. You put coins in a channel, why would you be charged interest? You pay interest on loans you take. As everyone's coin is in the LN channel, and any party can open a channel, who's the borrower/lender in LN?
2. Tx fees? Whomever makes the spend pays the fee. What's the issue you have here?