European banks have their hands full preparing for the European revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and the United Kingdom's open-banking standard. Compliance is clearly a top priority, to ensure they give third parties access to customers, while maintaining data privacy and cybersecurity and preventing fraud and financial crime.

In such circumstances, it is, perhaps, understandable that we have heard relatively little about how banks plan to defend their market positions, and even less about their strategies for launching new products and acquiring a new customers.

Many types of new entrants could conceivably emerge, like peers, challenger banks, retailers, fintech start-ups and established technology companies. Banks should be aware of the key risks and carry out a robust competitive analysis, identifying the main emerging players, their likely products and tactics, and the  customers they are most likely to target.

Seizing the open-banking advantage