[jeffreyrogers]

> The business of banking is vastly larger than cheqing accounts and ridiculous ATM fees

Right, but until recently the various functions of finance were embodied in different institutions. Due to pressure from the banks themselves and from the threat of competing banks in Europe the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act[1] was passed in 1999. This allowed banks to get much larger than they were before and to operate as insurers, commercial banks, and investment banks simultaneously, which they were previously prevented from doing.

Now, I agree with you that these are reasons SV startups won't "disrupt" the banking industry. (Nor do I think this is desirable, but that is another topic.) However, the idea that it is good to have massive consolidation of bank functions into one large corporation is not immediately obvious to me.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bli...