[PaulHoule]

If you want to do what a bank does, legally, you have to either be a bank or work with banks. A lot of the pain and BS involved w/ banks are legal requirements such as Know-Your-Customer and Anti-Money-Laundering and if somehow activity moves away from banks, governments are going to apply those regulations to whatever replaces them. (e.g. you can't raise taxes in 2019, but you can collect taxes that people owe but not pay -- the pressures for controlling international payments are strong and increasing.)

I don't agree that retail banks are dying. Goldman Sachs is getting into consumer services such as the Apple Card, they have a savings account. I mostly bank at a vibrant regional credit union and I own stock in a regional bank which has done well financially me as an investor as well as for the community, investors, etc. There are many entrepreneurs in retail banking who are doing interesting things as well as large and non-traditional players. (e.g. Ally Bank, which used to be GM's car lending arm)