Recently released research indicates that large tech firms such as Google, Apple and Amazon are looking less like partners and more like emerging competitors to banks.
A survey of banking professionals by banking software provider Temenos indicated that almost a quarter of respondents believe their most difficult competition exists outside of the traditionally understood banking sector. A year ago that figure was under 20 percent, and just over 10 percent in 2012.
“Clearly, rapid digitisation, in conjunction with other factors – such as diminishing customer loyalty and transformative technology changes – is opening the industry to these technology vendors, many of whose business models are built on an ability to turn vast quantities of data into meaningful customer insights,” report author Ben Robinson noted.
Bankers are also alarmed by the emergence of P2P payment platforms with the potential to supplant services tradditionally offered by banks–nearly 19 percent of respondent enumerated this as their primary fear.
Traditional concerns, conversely seen as a drop off in interest among banking pros- large incumbents, supermarkets and start-up banks were all seen as less of a concern in 2014 than in previous years.