Australia | 10:30 AM
AI agents, tokenisation, digitalisation are knocking on traditional banking’s door, threatening to disrupt customer relationships, deposit profitability and the existing financial infrastructure.
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Up and comers Stripe, Revolut are changing the banking landscape
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Tokenisation could reshape financial services
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How will banks respond to the advent of AI agents?
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CommBank's rise to a new digital challenge
By Danielle Ecuyer
Technology knows no geographic bounds
Traditional banks aren’t known for moving quickly or making radical decisions, but anno 2026 the financial sector is standing on the precipice of a technological disruption that will reshape banking as a business.
Think AI, digitalisation and tokenisation.
Unlisted company Stripe described its strategy in April this year as building the economic infrastructure for AI, including agentic commerce, stablecoin payments and digital wallets.
In February, the sector disruptor was valued at US$159bn, with 2025 payment volumes of US$1.9trn, up 34% y/y, and 9,383 employees.
Unlisted Stripe is not intending to simply replicate a bank; it is aiming to provide the financial infrastructure that facilitates the movement of money across the internet within a customer-neutral framework, including people, a business or an AI agent.
Companies like Stripe are increasingly competing with traditional high street banks in the transfer payments segment, which is highly regulated.
National Australia Bank ((NAB)) has announced “actions to simplify its operating model and better align its workforce to prioritise growth and technology initiatives for customers”.
NAB announced around -6%, or -2,500 employees, will leave out of a 42k-odd workforce.
UK digital bank Revolut received its Australian banking licence from APRA in July this year, introducing another digitally focused competitor into the domestic banking market. Revolut is reportedly preparing an IPO for 2028 with a current estimated valuation of US$83bn.
Can you see where this might be heading?
Globally, financial institutions have been announcing the shift to a new financial world.
Tokenisation is emerging as another potentially disruptive force for traditional 'old world' financial institutions, with the ability to transform how existing financial assets are owned, transferred, settled and used as collateral.
In simple terms, tokenisation converts ownership rights in conventional assets, such as bonds, money market funds and other securities, into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain.
The underlying asset remains the same, but the technology has scope to reduce the layers of intermediaries, lower transaction costs and enable faster settlement and potentially around-the-clock transfers.
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