> What stops a big bank from doing whatever it is they do?
All over the world you're seeing local competitors trying to usurp them now that everyone is carrying a smartphone and can just install a free app to make or receive payments - the most advanced are UPI in India and WeChat/Alipay in China, but Japan has PayPay, the European countries have all kinds of local systems based on phone numbers that are extremely popular (Swish, MobilPay, Vipps, Blik, etc) and often funded by the banks who don't want to keep paying the duopoly.
Eventually these will merge or ally into global-scale competitors.
> Eventually these will merge or ally into global-scale competitors.
Those country-issued cryptocoins that are popping everywhere should enable this.
But even now, a lot of companies are appearing that do international billing. Those tend to accept the popular formats from a few countries, and convert into the popular format of another country.
All over the world you're seeing local competitors trying to usurp them now that everyone is carrying a smartphone and can just install a free app to make or receive payments - the most advanced are UPI in India and WeChat/Alipay in China, but Japan has PayPay, the European countries have all kinds of local systems based on phone numbers that are extremely popular (Swish, MobilPay, Vipps, Blik, etc) and often funded by the banks who don't want to keep paying the duopoly.
Eventually these will merge or ally into global-scale competitors.