This is a great article. I expect that quite a few people aren't fully aware of the fees they pay in full. If you look at some of the statistics you'll find the average bank account costs about $250 a year, with some customer groups (e.g. those prone to overdraft fees, often optimized for fees by re-ordering of transactions, e.g. see the short documentary Spent: looking for change[0]) you typically see numbers between $500 and $1000.
It seems to be there are tens of millions of people in e.g. the US who aren't fully aware of this, and aren't aware of the alternatives. I mean, a great phone like a Nexus 5 with a modest data plan for two years costs about the same as most people pay for their bank account. Yet that same Nexus 5, combined with an elegant mobile banking app (or at some point apps built on non-proprietary technology like bitcoin) could replace those services entirely.
It seems it's only 2-3 years away before we see massive changes. From the rise of internet-only banks to non-bank digital wallets, the rise of peer-to-peer payments and even non-fiat currencies, it all seems imminent.
The big question for me is, will this be a big regulatory / dependency battle more than anything else? Despite Paypal being digital only, it hasn't really made huge headway outside ecommerce. It seems most forays into digital banking is dependent on the banks themselves. Look at Apple, it created a way to store bank (creditcard) credentials on a piece of hardware. Square created a way to read bank (creditcard) credentials on a piece of hardware. Paypal created a way to send money using bank credentials in software. And most of the bitcoin ecosystem has a foundation in payment processors and exchanges that all require a bank account.
Despite the disruption being clearly on the way, I can't help but notice that it's all very highly integrated with banks, and quite dependent on them, too. There's a lot of power in that to slow down disruption.
It seems to be there are tens of millions of people in e.g. the US who aren't fully aware of this, and aren't aware of the alternatives. I mean, a great phone like a Nexus 5 with a modest data plan for two years costs about the same as most people pay for their bank account. Yet that same Nexus 5, combined with an elegant mobile banking app (or at some point apps built on non-proprietary technology like bitcoin) could replace those services entirely.
It seems it's only 2-3 years away before we see massive changes. From the rise of internet-only banks to non-bank digital wallets, the rise of peer-to-peer payments and even non-fiat currencies, it all seems imminent.
The big question for me is, will this be a big regulatory / dependency battle more than anything else? Despite Paypal being digital only, it hasn't really made huge headway outside ecommerce. It seems most forays into digital banking is dependent on the banks themselves. Look at Apple, it created a way to store bank (creditcard) credentials on a piece of hardware. Square created a way to read bank (creditcard) credentials on a piece of hardware. Paypal created a way to send money using bank credentials in software. And most of the bitcoin ecosystem has a foundation in payment processors and exchanges that all require a bank account.
Despite the disruption being clearly on the way, I can't help but notice that it's all very highly integrated with banks, and quite dependent on them, too. There's a lot of power in that to slow down disruption.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAxL4TB6pmQ