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Nice post. Took me back to the times when we used first principles to buy houses before Trulia, Housing, LoanDepot, and scores of other real estate / mortgage portals spoiled the fun by spoonfeeding us. Hope to prolong the nostalgia with more articles on how to buy first car, first washing machine, etc. Since all of them require financing, a fintech community like Finextra is perhaps the best place to publish purchasing guides for them.

It's worse than a fad - it betrays utter lack of knowledge of how banks and disruptor wannabes operate. As I'd argued in my JIBC op-ed article titled "Impact of Regulation on Financial Services Providers", some nonbank financial products are too small to threaten banks (e.g. Dwolla, PROSPER) and the others will simply cease to exist in the absence of the banking rails on top of which they’re built (e.g. Facebook Credits which has, since the publication of this article, wound up despite the continued presence of the underlying banking rails).

My article is nearly 3 years old but the thoughts expressed therein are never more valid. I was convinced about this when I read the following comment from PayPal co-founder Max Levchin in the latest issue of FORTUNE magazine:   

"...Startups are always hard, but fin tech is a whole different level of self-inflicted pain. You’ll be regulated. You’ll deal with big banks. They’ll see you as little and cute until you’re meaningful. Once that happens, they’ll want to crush you out of existence."

I agree with you that, eventually, it's not a question of survival of banking but about specific players within the industry. That's the same in nearly every industry: While Kingfisher Airlines is bankrupt, Indigo Airlines makes decent profits; while Sears / K-Mart are struggling, TJ Maxx is flourishing, with rising profits and rapid expansion of brick-and-mortar store network.

@RussellB: I was struck with the same thought of a Dachshund's fraud deterrence potential when I was midway thru' the article. You bit - ahem, took - the words out of my mouth! The process should be capable of zero scope for False Positives, which makes it a challenge though!! 

@DanG: Where mobile money has taken off, a common driver has been the existence of a segment of market (e.g. Rural Kenya) that has money but no banks to bank with and a regulator who looked the other way when MNOs served this market or total absence of regulator. None of those conditions exists in India. Re. money, RBI is the only regulator, regardless of whether the transaction happens via branch or web or mobile. Now RBI is also the banking regulator and the central bank, so there's little chance of MNOs serving this market assuming there's one. IMO, the key to ignition of mobile money is existence of multiple regulators and power play between them!

LOL. To play loose with an old aphorism, if the customer won't go to the ATM, the ATM will go to the customer. But hasn't Venmo already claimed the "Uber of Banking" award by employing delivery men to deliver cash to the customer's doorstep?

Sorry to rain on the parade but this research paper finds Indian mobile money services to be duds. Unfortunately, my personal experience with one of them does nothing to repeal this notion: Omnichannel Fiasco No. 2: M-PESA. The saving grace is that the aforementioned paper finds mobile money to be flops in many other countries as well.

Boku, Zong et al did attempt a third rail - carrier billing - via TELCOs. While it hasn't totally derailed, it failed to pick up steam and had to change track to the card rail, as I'd highlighted in Banks Have Nothing To Fear From TELCOs.

@UlrichR: My take: 0 / 2-3 / 0. 

US retailer TARGET has done a great job in the promotions space with its CartWheel mobile app. Any idea if there are any retailers in Europe who have done something similar?

SnapChat clearly warns that it can't stop users from taking screenshots of its messages and thus circumventing its inherently ephemeral nature. But who reads such warnings, right? To tweak an old print media aphorism to mobile, warnings appear on the splash screen, taps happen on the inner screen and "weepies" are sandwiched between smileys on the last screen.