A new concept is coming to replace Open Banking – Beyond Banking.

According to Forbes contributor Ilya Etko, that strategy opens access to bank infrastructure not only for financial mediators, but representatives of other industries as well, such as tourism, logistics, telecommunications companies, entertainment industry actors.


Now bank clients can buy a tour or airplane ticket, book a hotel room, order food delivery, get an appointment with doctor, etc. via the mobile app or website.

The banks are becoming comprehensive ecosystems that compete not so much with each other (as it was the case during the digitization) or actors of the financial sector (brokers, insurance, investment and fintech companies), which we can see in Open Banking, as with representatives of other segments of consumer market.

International experience provides enough proof of that process: Amazon, Google and Alibaba can all be considered among the mentioned ecosystems.

Big players of the consumer market choose new strategies more often. However, Ilya Etko says, there is an important point here. According to an AMT study, although 22% of global companies planned to grow into ecosystems five years ago, now only 8% of them maintain that intention.

“The point is that global transformation is anything but easy. It requires huge resources for technological development and purchase of promising startups. However, we do not need many competing ecosystems. It is already clear that the market can contain only two digital giants. In China, they are Alibaba Group and Tencent, in the U.S. - Google and Amazon,” said Etko.

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