TreasureX Researchbis.wpBIS Maps Out Four Possible Futures for Banking
Christian Schmieder, Renzo Corrias, Oliver Wünsch · November 4, 2026
The Bank for International Settlements has published a scenario framework asking a deceptively simple question: a decade from now, who will actually carry out banking's core functions — taking deposits, making loans, moving money — and how will that reshape profitability, liquidity and solvency?
Rather than offering a single forecast, the authors build a structured way to organise expert judgement. The point is not to predict which future arrives, but to force banks and supervisors to think through several plausible paths at once, so that strategy and regulation hold up under more than one version of events.
Why it matters: banking's economics depend heavily on who controls the customer relationship and the balance sheet. If new entrants or technology platforms take over core functions, incumbent lenders could face thinner margins, different funding profiles and altered liquidity risk. If banks retain those functions, the pressure shifts elsewhere. Either way, solvency and liquidity buffers that look adequate under one scenario may look thin under another.
For investors, the practical takeaway is that bank valuations rest on assumptions about market structure that are far from settled. Scenario thinking is a tool for stress-testing those assumptions rather than a crystal ball — useful for judging which lenders are positioned for multiple outcomes and which are betting on a single one.
Source: Bank for International Settlements — Scenarios for future banking
Educational content only, generated with AI assistance from public research abstracts. Not investment advice.