The latest
report from The World Economic Forum and Deloitte suggests that
tech companies, including the likes of Google and Amazon, represent
a bigger threat to banks than FinTech start-ups.
To digest this, we've taken a look at both sides of the
argument: the reasons why tech companies might be the bigger
threat, and why start-ups are the danger banks should continue to
be wary of. We then pick a threat from leftfield that banks,
start-ups, and big tech companies are ignoring – perhaps at
their peril.
Tech giants
As the WEF report notes, banks are becoming increasingly reliant
on tech giants for services such as building customer interfaces,
cloud storage, or even marketing. Amazon's cloud computing
platform, for example, is being used by firms such as Carlyle, and
its voice-activated system, 'Alexa', has been picked up by
Capital One. Banks are using social media and Google as ad
platforms to acquire new customers, but in other, product-driven
ways too,
