Finance was meant to be the next great frontier for big tech. They would use their data and expertise to take control of current accounts, investments, broking, and insurance, disrupting the whole industry in the same way they have retailing, media, and telecoms, and now increasingly automobiles as well. And yet, so far at least, that has failed. Why? There are three main reasons.

First, the level of regulation imposed by central banks creates a very effective wall around the industry. Banking is one of the most heavily monitored industries in the world, and the level of scrutiny has only increased since the crash of 2008, and rightly so. Capital ratios, counter-party risks, deposit insurance, and money-laundering rules are there to protect consumers, and to ensure the stability and robustness of the financial system. 

But they also make it very, very hard for new players to break into the industry no matter how well financed they are. It is easy to get into selling books or films over the web. No one cares apart from the companies put out of business. Breaking into finance is a lot harder.

Second, brands count more than we often realise. No one has a huge amount of affection for their bank. And yet, as the challengers have found over the years, it is phenomenally difficult to get people to switch from one to another. Many of us stay with the same bank for our entire lives, and that is probably not true of any other product.

It takes a lot of trust to put your money with someone else, and that is not easy to establish, especially when the tech giants have already proved themselves so cavalier with the way they use and monetise our personal information. Finally, so far they haven’t had anything very new to offer. Libra didn’t seem to do anything that I couldn’t already do with a Mastercard for free, and neither do any of the other offerings. Once you can make payments over the internet there has not been much so far that is genuinely innovative.

Of course, that may start to change over the next few years. The tech giants may have been pulling their punches. They are already under intense regulatory scrutiny, with constant threats from either Washington or Brussels to break them up, and they may well have decided that a full-scale assault on the banking industry could invite too much political heat to make it worth the risk. 

It may also be taking longer than anyone thought. Mobile payment apps have now moved into the mainstream, and Apple is planning to enable its phones to accept as well as make payments soon (following its acquisition of the Canadian start-up Mobeewave). That will take it closer to what will be in effect its own payment and clearing network, which could be a very powerful combination if it effectively creates a whole new form of financial plumbing. 

And of course, many of the new fintechs are starting to make real progress in the market. Klarna has taken instalment payment into the mainstream and Stripe has built an impressive e-commerce payment system. It may well be the case that genuine innovations can disrupt the industry, but that simply trying to exploit an existing platform doesn’t really work.

The important point, however, is surely this. The failure of Libra is only the most dramatic example. None of the tech giants has managed to make any real progress in finance. The traditional banking and payment giants may not be very lovable companies. None of them has been able to grow very fast. But they also look impregnable.

Shareholders can stop worrying about when they might be disrupted. Right now the tech assault is failing – and there is no sign of that changing any time soon.