The bank of the future will be more responsive to changing customer needs and technological capabilities - while the Bank of England (BoE) may well allow more FinTechs to access its payment systems - but disruption will not be allowed to become a revolution, as in other industries.

Speaking at the Sibos conference yesterday, Victoria Cleland, executive director for banking, payments and innovation at the BoE, said they will make more use of emerging technologies in future and could allow more non-bank businesses to access its payments system – but any benefits such technologies and partnerships might offer must not come at the expense of the stability and security of the system.

“We need to think about the unintended consequence of things moving too fast,” she warned.

Benoit Legrand, chief executive of ING Ventures and chief innovation officer at ING, said customer choices will be at the centre of banking in future. “The bank goes back to the service industry,” he said. “This is the very, very good thing about the digital revolution: it forces us to move beyond where we have been.”

Legrand also acknowledged the irony that banks actually began embracing digital technology before many other types of business, “yet we did it too early, because now the technology has advanced and we need to redo everything”.

Manish Kohli, global head of payments and receivables at Citi, said that although new entrants have strengthened the banking industry, disruption must not negate positive attempts already underway to use technology to improve the banking system.

While it is important to aim to build a banking and payments system that is as streamlined and efficient as possible, those seeking a more complete revolution must remember that friction in the current system is there “for the right reasons”.

Kohli stated: “I’m seeing more bankers and industry practitioners thinking, let’s double down on the infrastructure upgrade – we’re encouraged by the direction, but we’re not happy with the speed.”

Cleland also suggested that the technology driving disruption in the banking sector will have broader benefits, including providing help to the unbanked population as use of cash continues to decline, by unbundling some payment processes from bank accounts and by helping people to access banking services more easily via mobile tech.

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