In the UK we do the tech and the finance in the same city.

My observation is based on over a decade working on trading and settlement systems at multiple major international banks, exchanges.

The infra is creaking at the sides, it is too expensive to fix individually. We're talking hundreds of millions, even billions, at every institution, that they internally decide, repeatedly, that they cannot spend. Every so often a bunch of them try and work out how to build an industry utility for faster, better settlement but can never get past the politics. So it won't change in a big way, not from the current vantage point.

But the world is changing. More countries and industries getting into the financial system, changing retail demand, more complexity for small businesses working internationally, etc... so I don't think it ends with "it's too hard to properly fix this" so let's not.

I am pretty convinced at this point that the world will fix it, as I've described, but from very different starting points to major New York and London institutions, and they'll drag the rest of the industry kicking and screaming along with them at some point... once there's money to be there in size, the big banks and funds will follow.