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As a bystander with no vested interest either way, I thought this post was quite balanced. After reading the previous comments, I'm beginning to believe the "rumours of gagging of experts." Why does it need anonymity to point out a typo, that too in the footnote? Just asking.

The online P2P froth fizzles. Banks seem to be their lifeblood, going by what prompted the near meltdown in Prosper.

Don't know about Canada; India's RuPay debit card is predominantly used to withdraw cash from ATMs instead of ushering in the cashless society that was its goal. Not sure why there's no mention of China, which AFAIK is the only country that has built a successful domestic card scheme.

Congratulations. Based on my membership in a few other communities, I can say that Finextra easily has the most level of engagement by way of comments, tweets, and so on. Because of trolling, it's sad to see many other communities turning off commenting lately. Special kudos to Finextra for taking the extra efforts to keep commenting alive instead of taking the easy way out. 

Great post. In my 10+ years of "wearing the show on the other foot" at all times - aka selling technology to BFSI - I can agree with virtually all your tips and suggestions. On another note, I thought fintech was busy trying to disrupt banks, so would they be too interested in your last section?!!!

Surprisingly, on one occasion, cheque proved to be the payment method of last resort even for a (USA-to-India) cross-border transaction. PayPal didn't work - because PayPal rarely works. Wire transfer didn't work - the customer's community bank didn't know what SWIFT BIC code meant. Western Union and Xoom didn't work - they only support payments to individuals, not a business. Finally, my customer sent a cheque via FedEx, it reached me in 2 days, I deposited it into my bank account as I'd deposit any other domestic INR cheque. While it took me 30+ days to get credit, I had to do nothing during that period. The whole process was totally frictionless. Only cash could have been more frictionless if it was feasible, which it wasn't. And, let's not even get started on BitCoin - I had possibly the worst experience with that recently. 

Sorry but neither the problem nor the solution is related to technology. In fact, as I've argued in Calling B.S On Banking The Unbanked, given the present capital adequacy regulation, technology may make banks reject loan applications faster. 

Why only mortgage? Why only UK? Selling almost all financial products is complex and subject to regulation virtually everywhere in the world. And these complications didn't crop up overnight. I only thought mobile-only banks had all the help they needed via millennials' preference for mobile, AI, algorithm, bots, blah blah blah when they decided to enter the fray. I'm just wondering why they need help from non-digital intermediaries?

Hi @DavidIngram:

When I pay by credit card today, the merchant treats it as money in his hand and supplies the product / service immediately. I still get to enjoy deferred payment. So I don't see how deferred payment via credit card defeats the purpose - for either merchant or consumer.

Irrevocability may be a benefit for the merchant / payee but it is either neutral or disadvantageous for the consumer / payer.

Sorry but "No reason why not" is not a compelling reason to switch! If and when RTP offers rewards and fraud protection à la credit card, we'll see. BTW, does any bank offer rewards for making UK FPS payments now? I didn't know a single one that did when FPS was launched 8 years ago.

On my credit card, as a consumer, I get rewards, deferred payment, fraud protection and revocability. How many of those benefits will I get with realtime benefits? Why will realtime payments be more beneficial for consumers?