Online peer-to-peer and crowdfunding portals are springing up as alternatives to the traditional lending, foreign exchange and equity capital markets. New electronic trading venues are introducing all-to-all networks and competition to fixed income trading.

Scale in processing power, cloud computing, and big data, along with new tools in customer analytics, is bringing the worlds of Amazon and Google to bear on the human sales and trading force. Meanwhile Apple Pay aims to replace the notes in our wallets and Bitcoin's blockchain technology is challenging the very notion of central bank currency control.