Banking norms are disappearing

QUIET REVOLUTION

- NYANISO QWESHA

THE relevance of banks is now increasingly dictated by customer experience rather than market share, says the writer. | IOL

A READER posed a deceptively simple question in response to my recent piece on Pepkor: what happens to traditional banking norms over the long term? It is the right question. But it may already be outdated.

Because what we are witnessing is not pressure on banking norms. It is their quiet disappearance. Banking, as we have understood it, has always been defined by friction. You go to a bank. You open an account. You apply. You wait. You are assessed, approved, declined, and charged.

The system announces itself at every step. It reminds you that you are dealing with an institution. That model is not being disrupted. It is being dissolved. Not by new banks, not by regulation, and not even by technology alone. It is being dissolved at the point where people actually live their financial lives, inside everyday transactions.

A grocery purchase. A clothing account. A prepaid electricity top-up. This is where the shift is happening. Quietly. Repeatedly. At scale. And wit! each of these interactions, something subtle but profound is taking place. The customer is no longer stepping into banking.

Banking is being absorbed into everything else. This is where traditional norms begin to break down.