It is actually a lesson on the connection of competition with productivity. Finland had a major banking crisis in the early 1990’s followed by an almost complete restructuring of the sector. The number of the bank employees and branches was reduced to a half in the process. Due to competitive pressure the banks had to change their business models.
The banks had invested a lot in information systems, ATMs and telephone-based services already before the crisis. In the more competitive 1990’s, the earlier IT investments were put in efficient use while new Internet-based services took off as well.