Banks in Conditions of Digital Disintermediation: from BANK 2.0 to BANK 5.0

The article substantiates the concept Bank 5.0 as a new institutional way of organizing banking in conditions of digital disintermediation. The research leans on theoretical and analytical approaches based on comparison of Bank 4.0 with the system Bank 5.0 being shaped now. The author carried out institutional analysis of changes connected with including banks in the distributed environment and gave logical and structural description of functions that are realized in digital infrastructures. It was shown that with transit to Bank 5.0 the functional role of the bank changes. It is no longer a universal intermediary that directly performs banking operations and starts acting as a participant of digital infrastructure. The bank bears responsibility for checking acceptability and correctness of operations, verification of client personality, observance of deal terms and collaboration with other components of finance ecosystem. Its functions include not only delivery of all services and provision of safe access to them, but also juridical justification of transactions and institutional coordination of digital processes. The bank becomes a junction in the distributed environment, where functions are performed through protocols, interfaces and digital identifiers, but not though centralized procedures. In this way its significance is retained not at the expense of control over operations but at the expense of participation in logics of confidence, performance and standard compliance. Research findings show the shift of bank functional role from centralized operator to a junction of digital infrastructure providing juridical competence and technical realization of operations. The transit to the concept Bank 5.0 is accompanied by institutional transformation, where bank participates not as a service supplier, but as a validating agent in the distributed system. It could require revising of basic ideas in banking and principles of digital interaction regulation.