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Good write-up. Relicensing could be added .. as it is likely to be on the critical time-line, and must be initiated despite the uncertainty (and faint hopes) the costs and manouevers involved will not be needed (in case of a transition agreeement).

This must be the way to go, now that PSD2 is here. Have a bank common standard (e g ISO 20022 based) interface, and central testing framework for TPPs and PSPs, to minimise work for all. There needs to be a clear framework as well for what consent the data owner (account holder) must give, and how that is handled, in addition to a clear delineation of the steps by which increasing amounts of data is shared, i.e. only balance on account, reserving amounts in case of delayed booking, selected transaction history, CT initiation for predefined amount to select beneficiaries, approval of beneficiaries, etc.. A similar continental European initiative ought to be launched.

After spending two days in London with the L39 people, meeting a few start-up banks and founders of a series of FinTechs as well as the UK T&I people I am amazed at the speed, available funding and commitment of the people engaged. More and more players in banking, insurance, brokerage, clearing and settlement infrastructures are realizing that the Future Bank is being recreated here and now. UBS is one of the foresightful ones.

A generation gap obviously, but it will narrow as older generations acquire the new skills. Scandinavia is shifting fast to more mobile and online transactions - and payment habits follow. Adoption of efficient apps for various mobile devices, with trusted security, is spreading into higher age groups. Banks save on high-street brick-and-mortar branches, paper payments (cheques are long since scrapped, and paper invoicing in steady decline), clients are relieved of internet banking sessions and ATM visits. And what's more: the overall cash flow turnaround is improved. The best banks adapt.

"The nice things with standards, is that there are so many" as someone nicely fraced it. The LEI, IBAN, ISIN, Mobile Phone numbers and Individual Identity of Legal representatives (nevcessary for appropriate AML and KYC) need to be seen as a comprehensive set of standards, accompanying the payment transaction leg, of a matching business transaction (goods, services of securities). Does ISO, EBA, ESMA, ANNA, EPC, etc. and their national and regional comittees still have an overall grasp and control over the developments, one wonders

Hi, Thank you for this broad and good summary of thoughts on the possible practical path of adoption of blockchain technology in finance. And yes, I do remember being part of the Identrus rave at the time, and that many banks were unwilling to take the risk of becoming the  identity and trustee of the top key of the PKI infrastructure. Many did not understand the concept at the time, and saw the banks' responsibility mainly as taking credit and financial markets risk.  But as we also learnt from M Gladwell's excellent book the Tipping Point, there needs to be a critical mass of early adopting connectors, maver(icks) that conceptualise, and evangelists that spread the word and showcase and proof of concepts. The idea or technology may be right, but the timing not. The question is, has the time come for a distributed ledger model, and if not generally so, maybe for areas where the biggest efficiency gains can be found, such as replacing core bank IT infrastructures?

Indeed, as BH says eIDs were for example rolled out in Sweden in 2002-03 and have been instrumental to the success for various forms of electronic agreement conclusions. It's been key to dititalized processes in many areas and on many levels: for tax reporting, VAT-reporting, banking services, car registrations, insurance. The technology and know-how and good examples are out there. Great to see the Netherlands joining this, and this is key also to for example instant payments services ... but there ought to be more countries?

I've been in the business 26+ years and agree: the renewal speed of banks is at tortoise speed. Regulatory compliance investments crowd-out a good portion of resources from innovation, but this is not investments in future revenue streams or growth, merely stop-loss inurance. Many bank leaders - at least in Europe - do not seem to believe in their own future, and layoff staff by the thousands ... pressed by quarterly and RoE-stretch targets. There is also a big risk of underinvestment in underlying financial infrastructure piping, but for a true real-time intant servuce new tracks/channels/conduits for the transaction flows are also needed

The picture is quite different in different countries. In Sweden, we also developed an electronic ID over a decade ago. It is in use for both tax filings and banking and other services, but the choice of taking on the role of identity trustee (and thus the role of provider of the core KPI component) is a key one for players to make. But the digitization and disruption race is on, so can anyone in the trust business opt out?