Research: More than half of the industry believes challenger banks won’t be competitive with commercial banks
- Tearsheet asked professionals what they thought of challenger banks.
- 57.2 percent of respondents believe challenger banks are overhyped.

A big chunk of financial and fintech industry insiders don’t see challenger banks as making a big dent in incumbent consumer banking. And when it comes to commercial banking, professionals aren’t impressed with the startups’ offerings.
More than half of the industry insiders polled by Tearsheet don’t think challenger banks offerings will be competitive with incumbent commercial banks within 3 to 10 years.

Interestingly, Tearsheet asked 172 financial and fintech industry professionals to rank challenger banks in order of their competitiveness to commercial banks on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. While no individual upstart bank scored higher than 2.18 (Revolut, Azlo and Novo), respondents believe challenger banks are more competitive as a whole over a ten year period (2.36).
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