McKinsey Quarterly 2023 Number 1

Making things even more uncertain is the fact that banking is a “multilocal” rather than a truly global business. Banking experience and regulation differ greatly by region. The average American still uses checks and spends weeks getting a mortgage. The average Dutch citizen pays every bill from a smartphone, opens new bank accounts online, and gets approved for a mortgage in a few days. Regional rules shape what banks can and can’t do. The next phase of banking for incumbents, challengers, and the rest of us The successful bank of the future will be defined as a network of platforms. Few banks will capture all of the ten platform opportunities described in this article in their regions, but many will participate in multiple platforms. Given the platforms’ enormous value creation scale, getting even one right can unlock tremendous value for shareholders and broader stakeholders alike. But success will come to only those banks willing to move beyond their traditional operating models. Banks should be prepared to evolve through multiple stages on their way to becoming a platform network. This vision of the coming shakeout may seem daunting. But the challenges are manageable taken one step at a time. The first and most important step is to commit to adapting as soon as possible. Banks and nonbanks that begin to transform themselves now will have a huge advantage over competitors that become paralyzed with indecision and confusion. The good news is that there’s still enough time for most financial institutions to transform their business models. Additionally, the capital markets are likely to be very supportive in valuing those transformations over the next five to ten years.

For incumbent, universal banks, the key steps will look something like the following:

1. Decide which arenas and business models to focus on, based on your strengths.

2. Start to align your organizational resources—especially tech talent—for the coming shifts.

3. Start to develop and test your platform business models.

4. Redefine your purpose (including your environmental, social, and governance impact) to build stronger bonds with your customers and talent.

5. Build a more entrepreneurial culture by protecting your experimental projects from conservative pressures within the organization—and give management incentive to succeed.

For challengers looking to exploit a tech edge as a way of entering banking, the first step is to analyze which arenas offer maximum advantage based on that edge and which

McKinsey Quarterly 2023 Number 1

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