The right mix of courage and caution that was necessary for that feat is required in other walks of life, too – and retail payment innovators are no exception here. In my remarks today I’d like to cover three things. First, I will outline the structural changes and challenges that the retail payments industry is facing as a result of digitalisation.
Unlike the business environment for banks in the 1930s, however, securitization and repo lending are national – if not international – activities, with little to suggest that any advantage would be derived from local knowledge. It seems quite possible that the economies of scale associated with the NFB model are sufficiently high that the industry structure would tend toward oligopoly, or even monopoly.