Monday, January 21

The future of an intermediary is to be intermediated out

Even though I work in a bank, the relentless pressures from changing lifestyles, changing technology, globalisation, cost pressures and the like will eventually mean that banks will atomise and in many cases, will disappear.

On the other hand, this is deeply worrying for the government who is trying to get individuals to take more and more financial responsibility in their own hands and is pushing policy down the banking channel. Now if the end customers arent simply coming to the bank, where does that leave the banking policy of the government?

Read this and go hmmm.

Banks have suffered a -dramatic drop in demand for financial advice as Britons increasingly manage their money using the internet.
Just 4 per cent of individuals still see their bank as their main financial adviser, down from 28 per cent in 2003.

*The proportion of consumers expecting to take out new savings, investments or borrowings in the next six months - or add to existing balances - has fallen to its lowest level since March 2002, according to a survey by GfK NOP, the market researchers.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

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