WATCH: Beyond banking

Picture a future in which customers conduct all their financial services through digital wallets handled by nonbanks such as Apple, Google, and Uber.

Or imagine another potential future, in which a mere handful of mega banks dominate global markets. Or yet another, in which traditional currency fades from relevance, and transactions largely happen through cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.

As we look ahead, it’s obvious there isn’t one clear future for the vast retail banking industry. Rather, there are several possibilities for how the next decade could unfold.

Today, retail banking is at a critical inflection point, and it’s no exaggeration to say that ten years from now the industry as we know it could become irrelevant. However, when allocating capital to digitalisation initiatives, a critical lens needs to be applied to every investment, as while agile and nimbleness are a given, major question marks still hang over the future of banking, the future of money and the evolution of payments.

Eventually, we will need to have conversations about decentralised finance and banking and, while we’re not there yet, the current evolution in technologies points to a disintermediation of central banks, credit unions and even banks themselves.

What is clear though is whichever direction it takes, there’s no doubt there’s a lot for the industry to think about in terms of innovation, and ultimately we need to start thinking beyond banking.

Michael Avery is joined by Graeme Lockley, head of IT architecture and engineering at Investec SA, Chipo Mushwana, divisional executive of emerging payments at Nedbank, and Guy Wilding, head of research at Monocle Solutions.

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