Upstarts Prepare to Ambush the Lords of Finance

Since the 2007 crisis, financial reform has been so frenetic it is widely assumed that it is regulatory issues that will reshape the industry. This may be only half true. What is also threatening to reshape finance is something most of the central bankers and economists gathering in Wyoming for their annual convention have hitherto ignored: technology. For outside the circle of well-known regulated banks—and indeed shadow banks—a clutch of technology groups is quietly stepping up efforts to disrupt finance on both the retail and wholesale sides. And while the impact of this so far has been modest, it might yet end up redrawing parts of the financial map—if not our concept of how digital money operates today.