Extinction Phase for Traditional Banks.
If that bit of prognostication didn’t get the attention of the average midlevel bank exec, this one surely did: The Citi researchers predict that the fintech revolution will wipe out nearly a third of all the employees at traditional banks in the next 10 years. Such a stark outlook helps explain the seriousness with which Citi and its big-bank peers are suddenly treating the latest threat to their hegemony. “Fintech is different,” says Bird. “It will change your life and my life. And will change this institution and every other bank.” Veering back to another paleontology metaphor, Bird puts the financial industry’s situation in perspective. “I describe it as the extinction phase,” he says. “What happens in an extinction phase is that you either rapidly adapt and new means of competition are created, or you go extinct.” Citi, then, is in a Darwinian fight for its life. http://fortune.com/citigroup-fintech/










