Yes, excellent point. We will indeed see more of these types of acquisitions. Though, at least in the US market, the playing field is still thin. Maybe if N26 breaks into the US market - -

Simple Bank now - personally, I was asphyxiated by their most recent, incoherent redesign. I went on one hell of a rant about it here:

https://www.designernews.co/stories/72631-site-design-simple

I wonder how things are going there.

Additionally to that point of acquisitions - the banks themselves are partnering with fintech organizations and forming their own venture backed cooperations.

The Financial Solutions Lab is a $35 million dollar collaboration between Chase and CFSI to incubate and invest in fintech startups.

http://finlab.cfsinnovation.com/

One other point related to that is the M&A activity around banks buying up design firms.

Capital One bought design firm Adaptive Path back in 2014. And in 2015 they bought Oakland based Monsoon design.

I've spoken to a few insiders there - and it sounds like there may be the culture clash one would expect from putting oil and water together.

With regards to the results - - I suspect most major US banks (Chase, Capital One, etc.,) - have simply given up on their websites. It shows.

That said, to their credit - I find many have focused on native mobile apps and some are decent. I find the Chase mobile app to be above average. Though I find the color story, controls and icongraphy to be reminiscent of Fisher-Price Toys. It feels a bit honky tonk, bossy out of scale, unsophisticated and impersonal for a place dats' holdin mah monay.

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I agree that cryptos have a shot at disrupting financial industries. I've been involved with a few bitcoin related startups. I suspect the myriad ways many speculate crypto will disrupt financial services may not come to fruition. And, whatever disruptions that take place may be extremely sharp, unseen and not what most expect.

The Black Swans are circling.

Crypto is still in its Make Out Club, Friendster, Live Journal phase and transitioning to the MySpace phase. We’ll see more and more radical decentralization, more attempts at centralization - and perhaps power laws may kick in - or not.

Anyhow, the incumbents are not necessarily in total denial and asleep either.

Major financial institutions have formed something called, The BlockChain Alliance - with the purpose of resolving institutional transactions via Blockchain.

Though, Goldman has already dropped out of this - thus, expect power struggles, and start and stop sputtering.

The area of most promise for crypto may be in developing markets where most are unbanked. There is obvious, existing precedent for the symbiosis of mobile, mobile payments and mobile banking in massive markets (China, WeChat) and emerging markets.

In emerging markets one of the biggest inhibitors to banking is trust.

As broader understanding of these technologies and their implications take hold, perhaps we will see crypto (related Blockchain technologies) become the defacto trust agents in these markets.

Further, adoption of these technologies by governments in emerging markets may address their major pain point - revenue collection.

I can envision a city that’s overlaid with a mesh of transactional inflection that powers day to day life. Use the road, ding - it hits your wallet. Use the park, ding. Throw something in the trash, ding. Basically, pay for services as you go.

Shoot - I could GO ON and ON about this stuff. Sorry for rambling. I love this topic. I was thinking about starting a newsletter to leverage the sources I have and to track it.

I’m just a little spent for time working on a new startup, building a team, etc., (unfortunatley, not in fintech) - guess, I shouldn’t be writing so much on DN. :) - but, I did just write this on my phone in a taxi.