Bitcoin Forum

What would be the future for banks?
Blockchain technology can be used to give access to financial services to billions of people around the world. Bitcoin allows anyone to send money across borders almost instantly and with little fees. How do you see the future for Banks?

The future of banks is not ambiguous or uncertain. Banks are still functioning in countries where Bitcoin is being traded and accepted widely.  Besides not everyone among us use Bitcoin for there is still a large number out there who do not believe in the technology or in simple words are illiterate in the subject. Banks perform wide rang of functions. You can open a current account which can let you withdraw cash any time or a saving account which gives return without having to think about the fall in the prices like they do in case of Bitcoin.

Banks play an important role in society - giving credit which leads to expansion of the economy. Blockchain as a technology cannot replicate this role. If you talk about the operational efficiency and cost savings that the blockchain can provide, banks can co-opt this as well.

Banks will not be redundant, but they will implement blockchain technology and introduce their own cryptocurrencies. They were the first to oppose to Bitcoin, but now they see and acknowledge the advantages of bitcoin. Governments will come with regulations and cryptocurrencies will be accepted and then banks will start with blockchain.

That's a very valid argument.  Internet changed the entire market dynamics for media in a better way. Traditional methods got scrapped and new methods were invented to upscale the entire industry. I am sure blockchain can do the same thing to banks. But there is a little difference though.

That will not be the same case for cryptos though. We have already started seeing organized protests against the adoption of cryptocurrency by the banks. So when they are protesting against cryptocurrency it is a protest against blockchain as well. So for this reason they will be reluctant at first to experiment with blockchain technology.

So I don't see the change happening very quickly. Also a probability factor comes in with that. So probably blochchain is the future for the banks, but it will come at a cost.
 

It's only valid if we think about the wire transfer service of the Banks (on the short run). It needs much more time to implement such features for cryptos that can create a competition to banks e.g. in loans, investments, etc. ICOs are a good competitor to IPOs on the stock market, and crypto exchanges are competitors to forex companies. But banks have so much services to customers, not all of them (tbh just a little part of them) are covered with the proper crypto services now.