Technology and financial services innovation continue to create new market opportunities in a number of different ways; leading US tech companies Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA) have already begun to introduce financial services and some believe they could significantly disrupt the traditional financial system; the Financial Times outlines current activities from GAFA and also notes similarities to Ant Financial’s plans in China; as services from these tech companies continue to expand into payments and other forms of financial services, market speculators believe one of the GAFA companies could even potentially buy a bank; while regulatory constraints and low ROE make this option unlikely, customers have expressed their increasing loyalty and trust in the GAFA companies; a report from Accenture says one in three global banking and insurance customers would switch their accounts to Google, Amazon or Facebook; while buying a bank could potentially be the extreme, given PSD2 changes in the UK and consumers interest overall it is likely that these companies will expand further into new types of payment technologies and fintech services in the near future. Source
