What will banks look like in 20 years and will they all survive the technology revolution that is allowing all manner of fintech companies to chip away at various aspects of their businesses?
It is a difficult question to answer. Those that survive will certainly look a lot different than they do today.
For many years banks have watched from the sidelines as industries which they have lent money to or invested in have been disrupted. Most of that is due to technology but also, for example, climate and attitudes to health.
The crystal ball gazers have been predicting challenges to the business of banking for years and rightly so because any number of technological advances have loosened the grip these institutions have on their customers.
There are now plenty of functions that were once the domain of banks that are now being opened up to non-bank operators.
As the history of disruption has shown the hallmark of corporate survivors is that they adapt rather than deny.
The first wave of the disrupted - without the benefit of watching the experience of others - were typically deniers and allowed cost-lite and technology-enabled new entrants into their markets. Media is a classic example.
Banks have had the benefit of years of observation and some home-grown experience of new players like mortgage originators that intermediated or got between them and their customers.
The clever and well-capitalised members of the banking community have learnt and prepared.
Rather than dismiss the prospect of being disrupted the smart ones have gone different ways.
Some have bought the smaller innovators to harness the technology, others have joint-ventured with potential competitors and where this is not possible they have just mimicked the technology.
Fidelity global equities guru, Amit Lodha, poses the idea that the next banking cycle will expose the winners and losers of the technology arms race.
He says that those that have invested the capital in technology will emerge triumphant over those that either didn't have the capital to spend or the foresight to see what disruptive competition was coming.
Looking at it from a global perspective he highlights JPMorgan as a winner and Deutsche Bank as a loser in this scenario.
From the Australian perspective, all four big banks have spent big on technology. It's fair to say that, for all its other faults, the Commonwealth Bank has been ahead of the game in making the banking and transactional experience sufficiently user friendly that even younger millennials can appreciate the seamless experience of transactional banking.
This takes us to the bigger issue of the real potential disruptors - those with capital, consumers and technology - the Googles, the Apples and the Facebooks etc.
A study released on Monday by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills posits a view from BCA chief executive, Ian Narev and ANZ chairman David Gonski - the latter offers a particularly interesting view on disruption immunity.
According to Gonski, the notion that these companies will become competitors ignores the threshold issue of the additional regulation that comes with the leap into the world of banking.
"If I was sitting on the board of Alphabet (which owns Google) or Facebook the big decision I would have to make is; do I want to remain unregulated except in relation to anti-trust or whatever or do I want to get into the regime of regulation?" he says.
"Regulation for banks involves equity levels which can reduce massively the returns of a publisher, a company like Google.
"My guess is that whilst regulation like I know it and I expect it to continue and increase stays there, that there will always be a place for banks and they will not be competing in banking with people like Google and Facebook."
It is a fair point. There are certainly some aspects of banking that disruptors would not enjoy or want to pay for.
But there are other lucrative parts that do not require large amounts of capital but that are very profitable for banks. Some transactional services are a prime example.
Australian banks have a well-documented history of fighting Apple Pay - which while popular with customers has been staunchly resisted by Australian banks.
The last word should come as a warning from Narev who commented to Herbert Smith Greenhill on the subject of Google or Apple that: "We have a high degree of confidence in their ability to enter and compete successfully in new markets but they're not going to find unaware traditional competitors unwilling to compete."
