Have incumbent banks recognized and responded to the challenger-bank threat?

Nigel Morris · May 24, 2021

There is still a huge amount of open field to run in fintech

From his three vantage points (strategy consultant in banking, banker in a public company, VC) he sees how challenged incumbent banks are in meeting the needs of a digitalising economy and how hard it is for them to compete with fintechs

23:40 20VC: Why Bundling Does Not Work, How The Best Founders Analyse Unit Economics, Why The Way We Approach Mental Health in Venture and Startups is Wrong with Nigel Morris, Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ QED Investors

Alan Chang · Jan 5, 2026 · hedged

Incumbent banks still have not woken up to how successful Revolut has become

15:33 20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy

Harry Stebbings · Jan 5, 2026

Incumbent banks are fully aware of Revolut and it dominates their internal strategy discussions

He recently spoke at an incumbent bank's away day where essentially the only topic discussed was Revolut

15:38 Incumbents are fully aware and it dominates their strategy

Alan Chang · Jan 5, 2026 · hedged

Incumbents discussing the threat is not the same as acting on it, so their awareness changes little

Talking about a problem and doing something about it are very different things

16:21 Awareness without action changes nothing

Jag Duggal · Mar 29, 2023

The very best Brazilian incumbent banks have started to respond to Nubank rather than conceding the segment, and Nubank has raised the competitive bar for customers across the board

The bar Nubank competes against has been rising rapidly over the last two or three years

44:53 Only the best incumbents have begun responding raising the competitive bar