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Great post. In that parallel universe, you'll never walk alone. (With due apologies to Liverpool since I'm a ManU fan!)

Having spent my entire career in the IT industry, I'm quite aware of the strengths and weaknesses of technology. However, with all the hype around tech, I regularly come across many people from other industries who have this urge to use tech in order to appear cool. I suspect a vast majority of mobile wallet users belong to this category that I've termed "nouveau tech".

I recently had a meeting with a member of "nouveau tech". All he gave me by way of directions to his office in a fairly remote part of the city was his Google Map Pin. Thankfully, before leaving my office, I plugged it into the desktop version of Google Maps and noted down the nearest landmark - it was a certain garden. I reached the area of my customer's office without needing Google Map. Once I reached there, I switched on Google Map and entered the pin.

No signal.

It was back to good old fashioned navigation aka stop my car every 100 meters and ask passersby where the said garden was. 45 minutes later, I reached a place and found the company's name written on a board attached to a wall. In other words, I'd reached my destination. Just then, I got signal, and Google Map very helpfully told me that I'd reached my destination.

As though that wasn't enough, the SMS I'd sent to let my customer know that I was running late reached him an hour after our meeting started!

Like the UK high-street bank, I too ran modern Google Map via traditional ASAD (ASk Around for Directions)!

Neobankers might believe that this scheme would have been a big hit had the regulator permitted switch to neobanks:) 

On a more serious note, 2015 has provided a lot of reality check for the founding premises of neobanks:

1. Apple Pay usage drops in 2015 from 2014 (https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/status/685484148631453696)
2. Nearly half of Millennials say they're more likely to pay with cash in 2015 than a few years ago (https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/status/689798849909669888)
3. And, now, account switching drops in 2015 from 2014.

Actually, I'd prefer a bank backend and a nonbank's frontend.

Once upon a time, I'd call a plumber 3 times for fixing an appointment for one visit, get used to his arriving 3 hours late and that too after several reminders, haggle over quality and price, and otherwise go through a torrid experience. Nowadays, I book a plumber on the slick frontend of one of the 50+ "Uber for Handymen" apps, select an appointment when it suits me, tweet to the app startup if I've a problem, pay by predefined rate card, generally get 10-25% off on the rate card because the app startup has enough VC funding to blow on customer acquisition. Ditto with cabs, grocery stores, restaurants, and so on.

As long as I'm assured that my money is safe in the backend of an insured bank account, I'd love to switch to the frontend of a neobank - many of them support 1-tap payment, improve CX and, instead of charging me a premium, actually give me a 10-15% cashback because they have VC backing for burning cash. 

It could be argued that such VC-funded largesse from neobanks is not sustainable. I'd totally agree. But how does that matter to me or to the banks? At worst, I'll have to switch to another neobank if some of them shut down, forfeit cashback if all neobanks stop giving it, forfeit the nonbank frontend if all neobanks shut down. When all is done and dusted, I can always go back to my good old bank's bad old frontend. Neither the bank nor I have lost anything in the bargain.

Your question was "Who needs a bank?". That sounded like present. Had you asked, "Who will need a bank?", I'd have commented differently: 

1. You're assuming that banks are not advertising directly to consumers. A majority of Top 10 costliest keywords on Google AdWords are related to financial services, which suggests otherwise.
2. You're assuming that the current frothy environment for VC funding for neobanks / fintech will continue forever. Recent IPO of SQUARE, almost 50% drop in stock price of LC and OnDeck since IPO - they all suggest otherwise. 
3. You're assuming that nonbanks will create viable payment backends. I've been hearing this for almost 10 years but payment backends have stayed with banks for the past 50 years. MNOs tried creating alternative rails with Carrier Billing around 5-6 years ago but that didn't go far (Banks Have Nothing To Fear From TELCOs). I'll believe your assumption if and when I see it happening in the real world.

I've seen more predictions about disruption in financial services turning out false than true (see my comments at https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=28259). So, I'd rather stay with the present. Besides, from what I'm observing, I've more reason to believe that neobanks are fearing disruption by traditional banks. To predict the opposite in future is idle speculation that I'll not indulge in.

What you call "giving up the frontend" is what I call "increasing reach, reducing cost, and increasing profits by moving operational costs and risk to third parties".

Disintermediation happens when producer and distributor are two different entities and a new form of distribution can disintermediate the incumbent distributor (though not the producer). To take a simple example of DOVE soap:

Producer: P&G

Incumbent Distributor: WalMart

New Distributor: Amazon

If enough consumers prefer to buy DOVE online via Amazon, if WalMart does not respond to this, then Amazon will "Amazon" WalMart, but P&G's status doesn't change. For all we know, Amazon could actually increase P&G's revenues by finding new consumers for DOVE from places where there are no WalMart stores or DOVE was otherwise not available in brick-and-mortar stores. 

In the case of payments, which is the subject of your blog post, let's see the value chain:

Producer: Card issuing bank, Card acquiring bank

Incumbent & New Distributor: Card issuing bank, Card acquiring bank

New "Distributor": Apple Pay

Regardless of how many cardholders move to Apple Pay, banks continue to remain the producer and distributor. The frontend relationship has not moved to Apple Pay - it has extended to Apple Pay. Bank knew the cardholder before, bank continues to know the cardholder now. If bank wants to do targeted marketing to increase ticket size, boost loyalty and whatever, it can do so, Apple Pay's entry has not undermined that capability in any way. There is absolutely no question of bank getting disintermediated in Payments from any new alternative payment service provider as things stand. 

In the context of Payments, the relationship between Bank and Third Parties is akin to that between a Principal (say SAP) and its Resellers in my native IT industry. Principal can resell its own product to the end customer but it still chooses to develop a network of Resellers. In the process, the frontend relationship shifts to the Reseller; the Principal also gives away a certain share of its revenues to Resellers by way of commission. Why does a Principal still create a Reseller network? Is it because it's stupid and exhibits inertia and suicidal tendencies? NO. It's to increase reach, reduce cost of selling and, in the case of Bank-SQUARE, to shift its risk to Reseller (as highlighted in my blog post http://qwt.io/s_ketharaman/7lXM). There's no question of disintermediation of banks by Resellers, just as there's no question of disintermediation of SAP by Resellers.

Your post and my comment are specific to Payments. I won't digress to Robo Advisors, Wealth Management or Online P2P Lending.

"Who needs a bank?" I can't believe I'm reading this. Pray tell me how will Apple Pay work without the issuer bank that issues the Apple Pay-enrolled card and the acquirer bank that allows the merchant to accept the Apple Pay payment? Do you have any figures on how many unbanked people have iPhone6 required to use Apple Pay? Sorry but the reality is quite opposite: Apple Puts Banks Squarely At The Center Of Mobile Payments

Would you've cited UBER as a disruptor in an article whose title includes the expression "innovators dilemma" had you known that the founder of this expression, Clayton Christensen, had recently declared that UBER is NOT a disruptor?

I echo your irritation with "Add 0.01 p to get free delivery", just that in India, the threshold for free delivery is INR 500. I've often wondered why Amazon simply doesn't ask the customer to "gift" away that 0.01p / INR 1 to reach the threshold instead of making them go around in circles to find a qualifying item.

Oh, well, wait, the marketer in me is now kicking in.

Maybe it is Amazon's intention to drive the consumer to buy some more stuff as they "go around in circles" - the ecommerce equivalent of stacking chewing gum, chocolate and other items at the store checkout line, easily within reach of consumers waiting in queue.

Good list. From personal experience and anecdotal evidence, people avoid mundane tasks due to natural tendency of procrastination, which rises manifold if the process of completing them is fraught with friction. Therefore, I'd like to add one more item to your list: Make systems to fulfill mundane tasks frictionless. This goes beyond "right technology" already covered in your list and focuses on UX.

Why am I not surprised? I commented here about why a single, common e-ID is unlikely to find acceptance for different services requiring different authentication strengths, especially in nations with federal government structures. I doubt if time alone will drive greater adoption.

@PeterRobinson: Not sure how this thing will work via MC but, in India, issuer banks have been offering this feature for several years. Just that it happens ex-post facto rather than at the POS. Typically, a day or two after the cardholder receives their monthly statement containing a particularly large charge, the bank calls them and offers to convert this charge to equated monthly installments. (More recently, online statements have started featuring a "Convert to EMI" hyperlink, so cardholder can opt for it without any human intervention from the bank.) As far as I know, the switch to EMI happens without any APR. Sometimes, there's a small fee but that's also rare. Apparently, banks do this to ease the burden on the cardholder and thereby boost loyalty - rather than make money via APR. On the contrary, deferred payments attract hefty APR.