Is the digital age the beginning of the end of traditional banking?

Abstract

Since the beginning of the technological revolution, the banking sector has undergone a series of changes in order to adapt to the new environment brought about by technological innovations. This new digital era represents a brand-new challenge for the banking sector. It has had to face the rapid changes of consumers who now have different demands. This inevitable process of adaptation has forced banks to evolve in order to stay relevant. The greatest challenge of this new digital era is, perhaps, the irruption of new competitors that: have very different structures to the traditional banking institution and offer different financial products. These modern competitors are the tech giants (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple). The aim of this thesis is to analyse whether or not these challenges threaten the survival of the traditional banking industry, as we know it. At the end, we conclude that the banking system is indeed threatened by these new tech giants. Hope is, however, not completely lost and we also have included in the following pages various strategies that could be followed by banks in order to maintain their current power.