[HN Gopher] No one is disrupting banks - at least not the big ones
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No one is disrupting banks - at least not the big ones
Author : kazanins
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-01-26 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.popularfintech.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.popularfintech.com)
| hobs wrote:
| This implies someone can take deposits and issue loans in a
| "better" way, when the main feature of this type of business to
| customers is showing up with extremely low risk of losing
| deposits, not innovation.
|
| Credit cards are not taking deposits and issuing loans in a
| traditional sense, they are fee generation machines that are
| externalized which would not generally be "traditional banking".
| doomroot wrote:
| There are other banking models that are needed. Look into
| Custodia Bank's model (SPDI). Full reserve system meant to
| backstop high risk (but legal) businesses. They went through a
| multi-year lawsuit around the start of 2020 with the fed who
| didn't want them to exist, ultimately lost.
| Red_Comet_88 wrote:
| No one is disrupting banks because the mega banks have the sole
| power of creating credit out of thin air, and no upstart fintech
| company has this power. To gain this power requires the creation
| of a bank, which as you can imagine, is probably the most gate-
| kept activity on earth.
|
| Andreesen talked about this in his Rogan appearance. The banks
| and gov brought the hammer down on crypto because it was a
| legitimate threat to the banking cabal which runs the American
| Empire.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes and crypto doesn't have any inherent risk like a sitting
| President creating a crypto currency where he has 80% of the
| currency, will probably make a half billion dollars and then do
| a rug pull.
|
| https://fortune.com/2025/01/22/donald-trump-net-worth-memeco...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That's the thing I can't ever come to understand about
| crypto. It's purely about perception of value. At least with
| some precious metal, it has a floor value as a function of
| its practical uses and abundance.
|
| Which leads me to believe that the only thing that could be
| honestly said is that a crypto is purely about winners and
| suckers and timing.
| mlinhares wrote:
| In this specific case its also about buying access, so I
| doubt he'll rug pull, he can just direct the access
| requests to buy something.
| sali0 wrote:
| The legal landscape forced the industry to be purely
| financial. Hopefully this changes soon.
| doomroot wrote:
| There are pros and cons of cryptocurrencies as money, just
| like gold, which cause people to speculate on the price.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| What are the pros of the trump coin or the melania coin?
| tenthirtyam wrote:
| > At least with some precious metal, it has a floor value
| as a function of its practical uses and abundance.
|
| I don't really give this argument much credence any more.
| If the value of, say, gold or diamonds were to drop their
| practical-use-floor-value, they'd be valued at probably
| less than 1% (maybe much less) of current value. I mean,
| how much gold is actually _consumed_ by industry? And we
| even have industrial diamonds now.
|
| A friend argued to me that crypto is "A Terrible Thing"
| because its just used to fuel the (illegal) narcotics
| industry. At this point, I'm doubting that too - the market
| cap of all crpyto, and the value being transacted e.g.
| daily volume, has increased massively recently. Are we to
| believe that narcotics have caused that? I can't imagine so
| - more likely to me it's around 90-99% speculation which,
| you might well argue, is "Another Terrible Thing."
| wat10000 wrote:
| I think the main thing precious metals have going for
| them is tradition. That's no small thing. They've been
| considered valuable for millennia, and that's likely to
| continue. Bitcoin might be replaced by some other fad in
| a decade.
|
| It's like if you're betting on a religion, Christianity
| is more likely to last than Scientology. They might both
| be equally made up, but one has demonstrated staying
| power.
| XorNot wrote:
| I mean, this is all true which is why we have fiat
| currencies.
|
| The UK government has consistently honoured debt for
| longer then the US has existed, for example.
| amluto wrote:
| The actual market value of diamonds is pretty low. You
| can pay a jeweler a lot of money for a shiny diamond, but
| good luck reselling it for a similar amount of money.
|
| Gold, OTOH, is fungible. You can melt it, mold it into
| different shapes bars, resell it, etc.
| dumah wrote:
| There's at most a zero floor value on holdings of
| government debt, corporate equities, bank holdings, and any
| asset held by a custodian.
|
| The floor value of physical commodities with significant
| storage costs is negative.
|
| The market is aware of these possibilities and these risks
| are generally recognized as being embedded in asset prices
| as premiums.
| halfcat wrote:
| > _It's purely about perception of value_
|
| All money has always been about perception, whether we used
| paper, shiny rocks, or sea shells as money, it's always
| been about perception. Is it real or counterfeit, do you
| trust the person you're transacting with, are enough people
| you know using it, and will people with weapons show up to
| protect your money if someone else tries to steal it?
|
| The "people with weapons" part turns out to be a key
| component. The novel thing about crypto is that you are
| less reliant on the "people with weapons" to protect you
| and tell you what you're allowed to do with your money, and
| more reliant on the "people with encryption".
| wordpad25 wrote:
| No.
|
| Fiat is backed by tax base. US has more assets than debt.
| Additionally US is the largest economy in the world, how
| much would the right to tax it be worth? A lot.
|
| It's not at all just perception and influence as you
| claim.
| macinjosh wrote:
| So hyperinflation only happens when the tax base
| disappears? Perception and influence is clearly part of
| the picture.
| miohtama wrote:
| There is brand value in Trump.
|
| Trump is the largest meme on this planet.
|
| What should be the fair value of his fan coin?
| hinkley wrote:
| The American dollar is also about perception of value, but
| via a maze of interlocking attributes that make it slow to
| move.
|
| A new fiat currency without a state sponsor is fragile by
| comparison. Always will be.
| csomar wrote:
| You don't need a bank to create money out of thin air and
| creating a bank won't allow you to do that.
|
| I can create money out of thin air with you, if you are willing
| to accept my credit worthiness.
| badgersnake wrote:
| Tether appear to have created a huge amount of USD out of thin
| air.
|
| Best not to pay much attention to Andreesen though.
| perrygeo wrote:
| > mega banks have the sole power of creating credit out of thin
| air
|
| Amazing that more people don't know this. Most people will
| insist until their face is red that bank credit is a "loan"
| with equal debits and credits on both sides of the balance
| sheet. Wrong. The borrower's bank account goes up. And the
| bank's balance sheet goes up (the loan is an asset). Viola, new
| money.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Take the next step. What happens when the borrower spends the
| money and the place they spend it banks with different bank?
|
| What's amazing is that more people don't think this through.
| They just take the "thin air" story and that's it.
| ahtihn wrote:
| If you count the loan as an asset, surely you have to count
| it as a liability for the borrower. And the bank has to
| actually give the money, so they're down that money.
|
| In the end both are net zero.
| kdmtctl wrote:
| You can't do this indefinitely. There a lot of risk
| management rules and capital requirement ratios which dictate
| how much money you can make of "the thin air". Also you
| should have enough liquidity to let the customer transfer the
| borrowed amount outside to actually use it.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| i thought the central bank does this?
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Getting a banking license in the US at least is totally doable
| and lots of banks are created de novo every year.
|
| As another commenter noted, anyone can create "money out of
| thin air". Come to my corner store and buy an apple on credit.
| Poof!
|
| Credit was the original money, made out of thin air, and can be
| by anyone.
| kcatskcolbdi wrote:
| Everyone has their own opinion of "lots" I suppose, but the
| quickest info I could come by in a quick search was 8 de novo
| created in 2021.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Yup it's in the ~10's every year more or less.
| Red_Comet_88 wrote:
| Can your corner store credit be used to pay taxes? How long
| will your corner store survive if the IRS found out you were
| processing transactions in your own currency?
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| No to paying taxes, mostly because the asset you'd have is
| an apple... The corner store at least has a receivable, but
| the IRS still won't accept that from them.
|
| But, at least in the US, before the national bank acts in
| the 1800's, various taxing entities specified which bank
| notes (or other assets) they'd accept and not accept. It
| was basically whichever bank notes circulated the most with
| no/little discount, some gold/silver coins, some government
| bonds. Ie acceptance by a taxing entity isn't really a
| clear line on "is/is not" money.
|
| Trading receivables has been going on forever, happens
| today, is totally legal. The corner store could sell the
| receivable, and many businesses to sell their receivables.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I remember reading about Monzo bank in the UK a lot some 5
| years ago. I'm curious how they are doing these days. Seems
| like they're still operating?
| ctippett wrote:
| They're doing quite well it seems. Everyone I know seems to
| have an account with them.
|
| They've had a full, unrestricted bank licence since 2017 and
| have over 9.3m customers[1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monzo
| jongjong wrote:
| Exactly. Bankers are modern-day royalty. Banks are granted
| special, exclusive powers by the state to issue/counterfeit the
| nation's currency as loans. Banking executives are anointed by
| decree.
|
| The idea of 'disrupting banks' is gaslighting because it
| pretends that they operate within a 'free market'.
|
| Just think to yourself; if the government gave you a special,
| near-exclusive power to create the nation's money in unlimited
| qualities to make loans to people and you could collect
| interest on that money (which wasn't even yours to begin with).
| Does that sound like a free market?
| picafrost wrote:
| In many cases the start-ups that disrupted entrenched big players
| did so by skirting the existing law and regulations the big
| players have to abide by and gaining market share before
| regulators could catch up to them.
|
| Maybe I simply lack vision but I don't think this behavior maps
| well into the fundamental day-to-day livelihoods of every day
| people. Certainly I am not willing to risk my finances for
| marginally increased convenience or marginally lower fees.
| m101 wrote:
| This. Regulation has been set so high on banks that it makes it
| extremely difficult for new players to compete.
|
| The reasons given for regulation are:
|
| - protection from failure because of inability to not bail them
| out (and it has done a good job of this by and large, with some
| obvious risk oversights - e.g. silicon valley bank)
|
| - money laundering regulations
|
| The real corruption/monopoly in financial services that needs
| addressing are the amex/visa/mastercard transaction fees. The
| only way to fix this, in my opinion, is to have the consumer
| pay the fees.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The big problem with amex/visa/mastercard is that it's a
| three sided market.
|
| So make it a 2 sided market, unify the processor into one of
| the sides. In other words, either a merchant co-operative or
| a consumer co-operative. In this case, a merchant co-
| operative seems a natural fit. The merchants jointly own the
| co-op, and get a refund of their fees proportional to the
| profit of the co-op.
|
| And you get the consumers on board the standard way: by
| bribing them. So something like a 2% rebate. So the merchant
| fees stay at a similar rate, but the merchants win in other
| ways because they own the processor.
|
| Nobody's going to become a billionaire starting a co-op, but
| an executive in a successful financial co-op would pull in a
| multi-seven figure salary, which should be sufficient
| motivation to interest the startup folks.
|
| And Y-Combinator would have to loan money to such a startup,
| they couldn't buy in. But it's in their interest to do so,
| given how much of the Y-Combinator portfolio is dependent on
| credit cards.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| My company works in the healthcare space. I don't know if we're
| really "disrupting" as much as we are inventing new niches that
| were previously unoccupied, presumably because of the
| difficulties of dealing with regulators, working with
| electronic healthcare record (EHR) systems, and working with
| large, bureaucratic healthcare organizations like hospitals,
| insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and EHR
| providers. We've had a lot of success without dodging or
| stretching regulation (although we did work with regulators to
| create a new category of medical device: algorithms).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What isn't the bank doing for me that is in need of "disruption"?
|
| High Yield Savings Accounts? Amex offers a HYSA that is 3.8% vs
| LendingClubs 4.5%. How many people have enough money in savings
| to make the difference worthwhile and make them willing to trust
| a non traditional bank? I have a year's worth of expenses in mine
| (in addition to retirement savings) and I wouldn't even bother.
|
| My bank is there to accept my money and let me pay stuff with it.
| hansvm wrote:
| In the $5k-$10k savings range, you can also average 4.5% just
| by switching banks every year and taking advantage of sign-up
| bonuses. With a spouse and the referral bonus, the break-even
| cap goes up to $15k-$30k. Everything is FDIC-insured the whole
| time.
|
| I'll wager that under $5k in savings, the $35/yr difference
| between those two account types might probably doesn't matter
| in the slightest. That opinion is colored by a couple of these
| neobanks "losing" thousands of my dollars for months at a time
| during transfers, the prospect of which seems much more
| dangerous to somebody with limited savings and likely only one
| bank.
|
| Above $30k, you can easily and cheaply get a medium-touch
| experience with a company like Merrill Lynch (who themselves
| offer 4.2% even in zero-risk (outside of bankruptcy) accounts)
| and should maybe start looking at moving some of that out of a
| traditional savings account anyway.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > What isn't the bank doing for me that is in need of
| "disruption"?
|
| Why is there still a hold for check deposits? Why do we still
| have banker's hours and business days for transactions?
|
| There are plenty of ways banks could be improved
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What type of transactions do you need to make outside of
| business hours that you can't do electronically?
|
| And who actually deals with physical checks? Even the various
| contractors I used when preparing my home for sell took some
| form of electronic payment
| dylan604 wrote:
| if i transfer money from one bank's account to another, it
| takes minimum of 48 hours if I make the request before 3pm
| cutoff time. Day 1, the transfer request is made at 1pm.
| Day 2, the money is no longer available in the sending
| account yet not in the receiving account. Day 3, the money
| is available in the receiving account. If I do it after
| 3pm, the request is not placed until Day 2. Why? WTF does a
| computer have a cutoff time? Does it go home and cook
| dinner for the family and do homework with the kids?
|
| >took some form of electronic payment
|
| These are nothing but electronic requests. No human needs
| to be involved, yet here we are. But sure, let's go ahead
| and argue like I don't have valid issues because you seem
| to not have any.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Zelle is run by the banks and transfers are instant and
| free.
|
| https://www.zellepay.com/faq/how-long-does-it-take-
| receive-m...
| dylan604 wrote:
| ohmuhgawd becky, look at this person just hell bent on
| trying to say i'm wrong.
|
| zelle doesn't work everywhere.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You're right, these are the only banks that support Zelle
|
| https://www.zellepay.com/get-started
| dylan604 wrote:
| i hope you get paid for all of your shilling
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You just can't admit you are wrong can you? Zelle is
| free, supported by almost every bank in the US - I'm sure
| you will find one obscure credit union in East
| MiddleOfNowhere South Dakota who doesn't support it - and
| it's instant
| dylan604 wrote:
| you can't just admit you don't know wtf you are talking
| about
|
| checks are a valid form of payment. if you receive one
| you have to be able to deal with it. some checks are too
| large for deposit via app. as someone else pointed out,
| zelle has limits that make sending large payments
| problematic. receiving a single check is much easier.
|
| " supported by almost every bank in the US -" thanks for
| proving the point though
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure you can find some obscure bank where it's
| not supported, can you find at least 5 and tell me what
| percentage of people it affects?
|
| I can't think of one scenario where someone would be
| willing to take a large paper check in 2025.
|
| You would actually accept a paper check from someone over
| $10K?
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Substantiate this "shill" comment. Who is this user
| employed by.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| Zelle has a limit on the amount I can transfer,
| especially for new contacts. And it is precisely new
| contacts where I need to make a big payment, latest
| example being the contractor to remodeled my kitchen and
| didn't want credit card payment for some reason.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > didn't want credit card payment for some reason.
|
| i'm guessing 3.5%+ is the some reason
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I don't think disrupting banks is even possible. The time, money,
| and energy required is simply not realistic. There's so many
| disrupt-able industries out there and I'm not even sure banking
| is the most beneficial one to tackle.
|
| It's a realistic Star Wars story where the Empire always wins
| because... well it's the fucking empire. They didn't get there by
| losing.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Right. Banks are boring. The whole industry is based on very
| simple math. Nothing much to disrupt.
| absolutelastone wrote:
| They've "lost" a few times by now. Government has propped them
| up.
|
| The other side of the innovator's dilemma is the fact that the
| market leaders who don't stick to their current winning
| formula, instead risking big on a new technology, will sooner
| or later get it wrong and fail on their own. That's why it's a
| dilemma.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo would have been fine in '08
| had they been left alone.
| qaq wrote:
| Not all of them were on the loosing side of that situation
| JPM had sold off most of risky mortgages in prior years
| taking a sizable haircut while other banks were supposedly
| raking it in. There was a ton of pressure on Jamie Dimon not
| to do it because JPM numbers looked bad compared to peers in
| those years.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I guess that's my argument as to why it's not losing.
|
| If the government bailed you out, you didn't lose. They have
| yet to really lose. Thus no incentive to disrupt such a
| "steady" industry.
| Neonlicht wrote:
| The government is very conservative in handing out banking
| licenses.
|
| There was a famous scandal with an Icelandic bank that was
| disrupting the market with higher interest rates.
| imtringued wrote:
| It is basically impossible to license a new bank in Germany
| and the financial regulations have become stricter over time,
| with a full banking license being mandatory for more and more
| things. It's kind of disturbing.
|
| If you are a big bank, you already have all the licenses and
| can do everything so what difference does that regulation
| make in practice?
| okanat wrote:
| N26 did it but creating a new bank attracts money
| launderers and scammers. The legal department costs are
| infeasible and half a century-old systems are not easy to
| adapt to new banking concepts. The government and
| regulation side of the system needs serious improvements in
| Germany to bring them to 21st century first. However, there
| is little economic incentive to do so. With an aging
| population and deeply conservative culture, there is little
| political incentive to improve any infrastructure. The
| current governing parties will probably lose the election
| next month because they made costly infrastructure fixes.
| luckylion wrote:
| But you don't necessarily need a banking license, right?
| My understanding is that there's a handful of bank-as-a-
| service banks that have a license and will let you do
| your thing.
|
| I'm sure the aging population doesn't help, but to me the
| primary inertia comes from how difficult it is to switch.
| You can take your phone number with you while changing
| providers, you can't do that with your bank account. They
| have "services" that are supposed to handle that, but
| having dealt with their investment arms and moving a
| broker account from one bank to another, I wouldn't trust
| them to not mess it up, and suddenly my rent isn't
| getting paid. So I'd have to do it myself, which will
| make me deal with lots of stupid systems and processes
| and cost a hours upon hours. I'd need to save 100% of my
| banking fees (which are way too high) for a decade or two
| to make that worthwhile.
|
| Make switching banks as easy as switching phone providers
| and you'll get some competition going.
| okanat wrote:
| To be honest, in Germany even the brick and mortar banks
| provide transfer services. They will detect and move your
| automatic payments. You usually fill a form, login to
| each bank and they send automatic requests to move stuff.
| Similarly my broker also supports moving accounts for me.
|
| Moreover, especially after the Wirecard scandal, I
| wouldn't trust any company that doesn't have a banking
| license. Without a banking license they can nuke my
| entire account and I will be the only responsible idiot
| for that.
|
| Btw, the US system is exploitative and decades behind
| what the worst European countries have. NFC payments
| became a thing after Apple brought them to the US.
| Europeans, heck, Middle Eastern countries were already
| using NFC EMV payments for 5 years by then. The
| technologically best and most trustworthy banks are
| usually from Northwestern Europe so look for Nordics and
| the Netherlands, if you would like to see a modern but
| not totally exploitative banking looks like.
| hinkley wrote:
| There comes a point where a reverse merger makes more
| sense. You want to be a bank? Buy one. You want to be a
| "different" bank? Buy one that's at a tipping point and
| make your agent of change pitch.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| all empires eventually fall
| pqdbr wrote:
| In Brazil traditional banks are totally being disrupted. See
| Nubank.
| rapfaria wrote:
| Not sure abou that:
|
| Credit portfolio in 2023:
|
| Itau - $1176 billion
|
| Banco do Brasil - $1109 billion
|
| Bradesco - $877 billion
|
| Nubank - $91 billion
|
| Nubank also had the highest default rate between them (some
| 6%).
|
| It was great when it was created (fully digital, no credit
| score check for a credit card), but it is now dealing with the
| same problems as the big banks
| neilwilson wrote:
| First thing you have to do is understand how banks actually work
| at root[0]
|
| [0]: https://new-wayland.com/blog/framework-of-a-basic-bank/
| d_burfoot wrote:
| It's crazy to me that we're still using the same approach to
| banking, given that the banking system regularly blows up and
| drags the rest of the economy into a recession.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Regularly?
| gabruoy wrote:
| It's crazy to me that we're still living on Earth, given the
| climate risks and the natural disasters destroying people's
| lives.
| a1o wrote:
| Aren't the big banks buying the fintech companies that have more
| probability to create disruption?
| nottorp wrote:
| Hm so when a fintech "disrupts" banks it ends up walking and
| quacking ... like a bank? Is it even a fintech any more?
| jbs789 wrote:
| The large banks have achieved scale in terms of accepting
| deposits and lending at lowish margins. To accept deposits they
| need regulatory approval and oversight.
|
| For higher margins lending products they are absolutely being
| "disrupted" by private credit.
| jiehong wrote:
| China has seen its banks disrupted quite a bit more than over
| here with things like WeChat or AliPay. All daily transactions
| are done with them, and even small loans.
|
| UPI in India at least made payment system much better, by forcing
| banks in the end. So quite different.
|
| In Europe, SEPA is doing something similar to India's UPI, albeit
| much slower. Again by forcing banks on a standard, unlike in
| China.
| wslh wrote:
| I believe a genuine way to address this problem is through the
| creation of financial sandboxes [1]: controlled environments
| where regulations are relaxed to promote innovation at a certain
| scale.
|
| However, current regulations favor banks, making it difficult for
| new entrants to disrupt the status quo without becoming a bank
| themselves. This complexity is further compounded by the
| intersection of regulations and geopolitics, which makes change
| particularly challenging. Additionally, while lifting regulations
| can encourage innovation, it must be approached cautiously to
| avoid potential financial disasters.
|
| [1] https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/innovation/regulatory-sandbox
| surfingdino wrote:
| Banks sell one thing--debt. Many have tried to "disrupt" that
| industry, but all attempts boil down to: getting a cut of payment
| fees or getting paid to resell debt. All "innovation" in this
| sector is done by crossing fingers and hoping the regulators
| don't notice you trying to use language to pretend you are a bank
| when you are not.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| Revolut had credit cards for a few years but only in Lithuania
|
| https://www.revolut.com/en-LT/credit-cards/
|
| I guess they'd need to apply for banking license to offer CC in
| every EU state and that would be an order of magnitude more
| expensive than Lithuania's banking license
| fph wrote:
| I think that the true reason is another one: credit cards come
| with credit, which people can choose not to pay back. It is
| complicated to recover money from a person abroad, possibly
| having to sue them in every EU state.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| No one is providing a value proposition that would make me move
| away from [my large bank] when it comes to a basic checking
| account.
|
| Banks were disrupted in the mortgage market - a very large chunk
| of residential mortgages go through brokers.
|
| Banks are being disrupted in corporate credit. "Private Credit"
| is exploding.
| zigglezaggle wrote:
| This is like saying "nobody is disrupting AWS" and then pointing
| out that competitors don't have a version of AWS Glue.
|
| Plenty of startups have disrupted banks. AMEX purchased one to
| jumpstart its small business checking accounts just a few years
| ago. You're just not looking hard enough.
|
| If you move the goal posts to core checking/savings accounts by
| consumers, then yeah there's not much of an upside there.
| Consumers go decades to lifetimes on average without changing
| banks. Capital One was the last one to do anything "disruptive"
| here re: providing accounts and credit to the lower class, and
| I'm not sure there's enough juice to squeeze left for a smaller,
| more focused product to make any money given the stickiness of
| checking accounts generally.
| xyst wrote:
| Disruption will take awhile. The current players have rigged the
| game in their favor. They have government officials, lobbyists,
| and 40+ years of shitty neoliberal economic theory behind them.
| The subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent bailout of banks by
| main street is an example.
|
| It will take more than a credit card or fancy app to disrupt this
| corrupt machine.
| poisonborz wrote:
| What do we understand under "banks"? If keeping with the simply
| notion of "stores funds and provides debit cards", the most
| common usage in EU, especially east, banks were deeply disrupted.
| Revolut and Wise took a large segment of the youth, who now also
| got hooked on more services like savings accounts and stocks.
| They have startup-like culture while being registered as standard
| banks. Obviously their services, quality and support are
| lightyears ahead of any traditional financial institution.
| liendolucas wrote:
| I'm a happy Revolut customer. Their app is great and it has
| features that banks here in Italy don't (or if they do they
| always charge it, that's why I'm trying to slowly break away
| from them). Banking in Italy is the worst of the worst. They
| are extremely well trained to make you waste time. Avoid at all
| costs Banco Posta. People are not just inefficent, they have
| absolutely no idea about anything you ask them and they love to
| make you wait eternally. I have recently asked for more
| information about a loan at another bank and surprisingly they
| refuse to send me a formal document to read all the terms and
| conditions. They literally sent me a plain text email with some
| numbers, when I required them formal details (the famous "small
| letter") about it they simply didn't reply.
| Havoc wrote:
| There was one playing the move fast and break things playbook.
| SVB...
| devops000 wrote:
| Bitcoin
| ranger207 wrote:
| The products being pointed out in this article as an attempt to
| disrupt banks seem to be basically the same product for a
| different price. Like, a high-yield savings account is just a
| savings account with a better price, right? How do you disrupt an
| industry by selling the same products? The advantage of startups
| is that they're more nimble, can pivot to fit the market better,
| and can adapt to customer requests faster. None of that applies
| to "selling the same product at a lower price", especially for
| savings accounts where stability ("the company not suddenly
| disappearing") is an important part of the pitch anyway
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