Digital technology disruption on bank business models

This research investigates the impact of digital technology, via Fin-Tech challenger banks on banks' business models. Fin-Techs are exerting a pervasively disruptive influence on bank business models. Notwithstanding the obvious benefits, analysis in this area from high-income transition economy remains unexplored. The paper exploits this gap via a drop/pick-up survey questionnaire administered on a sample of all 68 UAE-Federation of Bank members. The results indicate that digital technology is transforming the banking ecosystem from classical competitive models to innovative bank-to-Fin-Tech collaborative models, where classical banking is disintermediated into multi-modal, multi-directional and smaller models, generating opportunities never seen before, more so for overseas banks from developed economies. The sample period is short if we consider the frenetic pace of technological change, which may compromise the extension of the results to a wider population. The paper contributes to research on bank models by providing insights on how classical bank models are being transformed.