[anself]

Having worked in banking for many years (no longer), I can say with confidence, the big banks have a giant moat: regulation.

They want to be heavily regulated so that new upstart competitors will not come in and spoil their cozy space. And it’s easy to justify because terrorism, money laundering, insider trading, etc etc. And many of these regulations are largely ineffective and easily worked around, whilst costing billions to the banks to comply with. Hence the moat.

We won’t get banking disruption until there’s banking deregulation.

[thisislife2]

> many of these regulations are largely ineffective ...

Maybe in the US or some other parts of the world, but the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the indian banking regulator, does a pretty decent job, as is evident from the public payment infrastructure they have fostered (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Payments_Corporation_... ) . They also create a competitive market by allowing small players to enter the market (e.g. https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/payment-banks/). Many of their regulations also do a decent job of protecting consumer rights (e.g. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/... ).