According to a new World Economic Forum report, tech giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon have enormous potential to disrupt finance; the big tech companies already have scale and brand recognition, something most startups are still looking to achieve; AltFi reports that the 200-page report says: "Financial institutions increasingly resemble, and are dependent on, large tech firms to acquire critical infrastructure and differentiating technologies, the coming collision between financial institutions and large techs leads to tough choices for all firms: become dependent on large techs or risk falling behind."; the report goes on to say fintechs, while successful, have still yet to really disrupt big financial firms as many of their solutions are beginning to be built by the incumbents. Source
We anchor our writing around the World Economic Forum 223 page report on CBDCs and stablecoins. The analysis highlights the key conclusions across several white papers in the report. We then add a layer of meta analysis around the language in the report, and question what it is trying to accomplish, and whether that will work with the Web3 revolution. This leads us to think about the tension between populism, as represented by crypto, and institutionalism, as represented by banking structures. We discuss theories of cultural and national DNA, and the rise of populism, as difficult problems to solve for any global alignment.
The report is titled "Beyond Fintech: A Pragmatic Assessment of Disruptive Potential in Financial Services"; in a brief summary of the report, the Word Economic Forum says: "Our findings suggest that fintechs have materially changed the basis of competition in financial services, but have not yet materially changed the competitive landscape. They play a critical role in defining the pace and direction of innovation across the sector but have struggled to overcome the scale advantages of large financial institutions."; the report is 196 pages and covers the major verticals in financial services. Source