The banking landscape is changing and the Covid pandemic has only caused that change to accelerate.  The use of technology in finance has a long history. In fact, because finance involves high-value activities, there has always been an incentive to use the latest technology.  Digital technology made its way into finance as the second major application of electronic computers after the military.  Without advanced IT infrastructures the facilities we today accept as normal and a definite requirement such as Internet banking, instant money transfers and the like would not be possible.

Banking differs widely between countries. In the USA there have always been the large banks covering continental USA but still significant numbers of smaller more localised banks whist in Europe there were few but very large banks.  In Australia the number of banks has doubled in the last twenty years.  The advent of pure on-line bankings with no physical branches has changed to landscape, forcing the pace of change withing larger establised banks in order to remain competetive.  The aftermath of the pandemic has resulted in huge digital transformation and newer business models to be explored by the banks.

Cryptocurrency and making use of the blockchain has also forced rapid change within the  banking industry, providing customers with an alternative to traditional services offered. Decentralized digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, operate independently of central banks.  On the other side however blockchain, a distributed ledger technology, provides secure and transparent transactions and has the potential to revolutionize the banking industry by making transactions faster, less expensive, and more secure.