Competition policy and the financial technology revolution in banking

This paper argues that the more ambitious prognosticatons of the outcome of the current "Fintech" revolution, a transformation of banking to the benefit of customers, depend critically on the appropriate use of competition law and policy, in particular the regulation of access to banking platforms. Without supportive intervention of this kind by regulators and central banks to promote incentives for adoption, for example through requiring standardised information exchange through "application programming interfaces" (APIs) and widening access to central bank money, incumbents are likely to successfully resist substantial change.