Inside the digital vortex: Financial services

Upheaval in the financial services sector has been a long time coming. FinTech innovators saw the global financial crisis of 2007-8 as the opportunity to break through, as customer trust in the industry’s incumbents was severely shaken. Ultimately, however, customers proved reluctant to abandon the traditional business and interaction models to which they were accustomed.

Indeed, while the FinTech boom of the past decade has seen remarkable sums raised and invested, the digital penetration of many financial services industries has only just started in earnest. As recently as 2020, for example, just 37% of consumers in the US – the biggest financial services market in the world – described themselves as regular users of digital banking applications.

Today, however, IMD’s latest Digital Vortex research suggests the financial services sector is going through its most challenging period of digital disruption yet. Around 92% of executives in the sector think this…