Why are banks ‘trying to shapeshift’ into technology companies?
Referenced by IBM Institute for Business Value and SME Finance Forum.
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ABOUT
I examine how technology changes who controls banking.
I write about banking, artificial intelligence and financial infrastructure, and founded Torinel® to turn those questions into observable research in the German financial market.
My focus is the movement of control — across distribution, customer relationships, data, interfaces, infrastructure and increasingly the decision itself.
The first fintech wave
During the first major fintech wave, I wrote about the changing relationship between banks and technology companies: open APIs, competition, regulation, emerging platforms and the institutional structures that could prevent banks from responding effectively to change. I also interviewed people developing and interpreting the new financial-technology market.
Open Bank API Ecosystem as Firewall Against Fintechs
Referenced by Infosys Finacle.
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The work travelled further than the website.
Earlier work was subsequently cited, referenced, republished or reused by institutional, academic and industry sources, including IBM Institute for Business Value, Infosys Finacle, the U.S. National Defense University and SME Finance Forum. A fintech taxonomy I created in 2018 is preserved by Wikimedia Commons and has been used across Wikipedia and Wikidata projects.
That record includes interviews with Spiros Margaris, Renu Bhatia on Hong Kong’s SuperCharger accelerator, and Swanest co-founder Silvan Schumacher. Shaun Weston also interviewed me about the fintech landscape in 2015. These conversations and the original analyses are preserved in the curated archive.
Explore the earlier work →FinTech SegmentsA working taxonomy
FinTech
Payments
& Transfers Lending
& Credit Wealth &
Investment Personal
Finance Insurance
(InsurTech) RegTech Banking
Infrastructure Crypto &
Blockchain
& Transfers Lending
& Credit Wealth &
Investment Personal
Finance Insurance
(InsurTech) RegTech Banking
Infrastructure Crypto &
Blockchain
KM-A18-001 / 2018
Two shifts, one structural question
I later took a break from regular publishing on financial technology. What brought me back was another structural shift: artificial intelligence moving from information into interpretation, recommendation and decision-making.
FIRST SHIFT
Digital technology changed access, distribution and banking interfaces.
SECOND SHIFT
AI is beginning to enter interpretation, recommendation and decision-making.
The next control point
Artificial intelligence is beginning to occupy a position that earlier technologies largely did not. It can sit between information and action — researching, comparing, recommending and increasingly participating in decisions.
In financial services, that raises a question I find more interesting than whether a bank has launched a chatbot:
What changes when the interface between people and their money begins to interpret intent and participate in action?
I founded Torinel® to investigate these questions in the German financial market. The developing Torinel AI Banking Index™ examines the capabilities, authority and controls of customer-facing banking AI.
Today that work has two distinct layers. Essays are where I develop the strategic ideas — control, authority, distribution, operating layers and intermediation. Torinel® is where those questions become evidence, research and measurement in German banking.
Explore the 2026 essays →