I was in the middle of working on a bunch of stuff, when a comment stood out for me that tech is global, but banking is domestic. This really struck home, as it highlighted a critical point. Most banks are not particularly able to go outside their domestic and regional markets due to regulatory restrictions and compliance overheads, whereas most technology companies build to provide global networking reach.
It is the reason why we struggle so much when thinking about big banks versus big tech. I’ve worked with large banks all my life and wrote an in-depth report on why there were no big European banks. Sure, there’s Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, HSBC and more, but there hasn’t been a merger within the region to create a truly pan-European bank.
