Traditional banks are on the tightrope. A global consulting firm projects that they could lose up to 35% of their financial market share by 2030. That is equivalent to a reduction of between $5 trillion and $6 trillion in global income.
The data appears in a Bain & Company report titled Six Provocations to Future-Proof Your Bank. The document explains how artificial intelligence, real-time payments, the growth of private credit and stablecoins are transforming the financial sector.
This transformation accelerates a process that the industry knows as disintermediation: when customers begin to solve their financial needs without going through a bank, using digital platforms, virtual wallets or fintech services that offer the same thing faster and cheaper.
The numbers show a clear trend. In the early 2000s, traditional banks captured 95% of the potential income of the financial market. Today that figure dropped to around 80%.
Bain & Company estimates that by 2030 they could reach just 65%. The lost ground does not disappear: it is gained by technological competitors that did not even exist before.
Why traditional banks lose customers
The current change is not only technological. It is structural. New platforms are emerging that integrate multiple financial services in a single app, reducing the traditional role of banks as sole intermediaries between money and users.
These startups capture value in segments that were previously exclusive to banking: payments, credit, wealth management and even capital markets.
According to Bain & Company, Technological players have greater access to data and direct reach over customers. This allows them to offer more personalized products and faster credit decisions.
The report warns that this scenario “exposes banks to simultaneous competition throughout the value chain, reducing their ability to generate income on a sustained basis.”
The consulting firm summarizes it like this: “The ability to make strategic decisions, focus on spaces of differential value and adapt to a broader competitive environment will be key to sustaining its relevance in the coming years.”
What happens in Latin America with traditional banking
In Latin America, this transformation occurs in parallel with structural challenges specific to the region. This increases the complexity of the scenario for local banks.
The pressure to modernize systems, adopt new technologies and improve the customer experience is combined with the need to maintain operational and regulatory stability. It’s not just competing: it’s doing it while building the infrastructure.
Bain & Company identifies that the key challenge for banks is to detect the structural changes that will define their future competitiveness and act in advance. Don’t react when it’s too late.
The key to the survival of the traditional banking sector, according to the consulting firm, involves three axes: concentrating resources on the products and markets where they can win, innovating before the competition and eliminating the bureaucracy that slows down execution.
See more: The five Latin American countries where banks generate the most profits in 2025
The six strategies that banks should apply now
Bain & Company proposes six key areas of focus for bank CEOs. They are aimed at strengthening the strategic position of the institutions and ensuring their future growth.
- Focus where it can be essential: Prioritize the segments and geographies where the bank can truly lead, not try to be everywhere.
- Treat customer trust and loyalty as capital: Measure them with specific metrics and assign direct participation to senior management, not delegate them to the marketing area.
- Innovate before others do: Bring new features to market in weeks, not months. Speed matters more than perfection.
- Orchestrate the ecosystem on your own terms: Define where to collaborate with fintech, where to compete directly and where to dominate without giving up control.
- Modernize the business model, not just the technological infrastructure: The focus should be on the value of your own data and how to use it to make better decisions, not just on changing servers or updating apps.
- Simplify organization to gain speed: Eliminate layers of governance that slow execution and delay critical decisions.
How fintech is gaining ground on banks in Latin America
Fitch Ratings published a recent report explaining that fintech in Latin America could boost credit penetration in a region still marked by high banking concentration and low banking penetration.
However, progress is uneven. “The regulation of new financial agents, such as fintech, is uneven in the region,” says Fitch. Some markets have already implemented regulatory frameworks and specific licenses, while others are still in the initial stages of regulatory development.
This divergence has shaped the pace and degree of evolution of the Latin American fintech ecosystem. According to a report from the agency, instant payments and open finance are pillars of growth, especially in Brazil, the most advanced market.
But Fitch warned that greater access to credit remains limited by high costs, in an environment of political risks, regulatory changes and greater financial volatility in 2026.
Fintech companies, which have demonstrated dynamism and the ability to attract capital in the last three years, could continue to be natural poles for investments in startups in Latin America in 2026. But with an increasingly selective approach.
Companies in the fintech sector, especially, “could see mergers, consolidations or raising private capital in Latin America in general, in a context of growing maturity of the ecosystem,” Marcela Chacón, institutional spokesperson for the firm TTR Data, told Bloomberg Línea.
Where are the biggest opportunities for fintech
Tomás Bercovich, co-founder and CEO of the sector company Global66, said in a recent interview with this medium that, although financial services are one of the largest industries globally, Fintech penetration is still marginal.
Globally, he explained, these companies represent less than 5% of the market share of financial services. Therefore, most of the business continues to be concentrated in traditional players.
The opportunity for these companies is to “gain market share from incumbents.” According to the executive, fintech companies can achieve this through a better user experience, with lower costs, greater speed and differentiated products compared to those offered today by traditional financial services providers.
Lina Uribe, specialist in the area of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and partner at the Pérez-Llorca, Gómez-Pinzón law firm, points out that within the fintech segment, The greatest opportunities would be concentrated in those companies that respond to the structural needs of the region. Among them, those of infrastructure and B2B payments.
