Since 2011, disruption has been the name of the game in banking, thanks largely to the rise of the broader digital economy. On Accenture’s Disruptability Index, which quantifies disruption across industries on a scale of 0 to 1, banking moved from 0.43 in 2011 to 0.52 in 2019 in terms of current disruption—elevating it from the index’s Vulnerable category and into Volatile. In 2020, Accenture Research estimated that 20% of all players in the banking and payments sectors were less than 15 years old.
The drivers of these changes—rising consumer expectations, nimble new industry players, powerful emerging technologies and shifting regulations—put immense pressure on incumbent banks to bring meaningful innovation to their established businesses.
And that was before the pandemic. COVID-19 supercharged the digital banking trend. Banks saw in-person traffic in branches plummet, along with the use of cash.
But the pandemic also had a less predictable impact: leveling the playing field. This is apparent in three key areas.