Banks will be destroyed by Fintech? Really? Banks will became FinTech.

Seriously you believe that banks will let FinTech take over all their business? Think again!

Banks have money, banks have resources, banks have ideas. And they are making their dreams come true!

Let's start from money. Who do you think invests in EU FinTech most money? VCs? Crowdfunding? ICOs? Well... BANKS!

And not only those who are well know by their innovative approach like CItigroup, but on a pole position we have JP Morgan and.. Bank of America!

Let's move to trust

Interesting point of view was shared lately by partner at Luxemburg based VC firm - Mangrove Capital, Mark Tluszcz:

“Even though we all love to hate our bank, we still fundamentally trust the bank that, if we put our money there, it is not going to disappear overnight. And the fintechs have struggled to win that trust.”

And that is the true. Revolut has 4 mln. customers, but how many of those actually trusted them with their salaries? The same situation we see with Starling, Monzo, Monese. People use those solutions because of lower prices, but do they fully trust them? Will they make them the main conduit for their retirement savings or mortgages? We are not there yet.

This has bought big banks time to attempt to beat the fintechs at their own game, And they just started.

Not looking far - e.g. Santander build an online and mobile customer base of 32 million, compared with 4 million users at Revolut which recently got a banking license to allow it to attract deposits, or 2 million Monzo. Santander also now has an app-only bank called Superdigital in Brazil to target lower-income users who normally wouldn’t have a bank account, a model it plans to roll out across Latin America. 

The Spanish lender operates in about 30 countries worldwide and already runs Openbank, a standalone online and mobile-banking unit in Spain that has rolled out a host of snazzy products and services. It raised its digital game last year by starting a money-transfer platform called One Pay FX that uses Blockchain-inspired technology and allows its clients to send money abroad within hours, instead of the days it can typically take at a bank.

I would say that now, FinTech, should start watching banking space more carefully since it seems that they can loose in their own game! The argument about old technology and legacy is not valid already. Times change quickly!