Banking in 2050

Overview

The accelerating shift in economic power from the developed to emerging economies is dramatically changing the banking industry across the world.

Leaders of financial institutions need to take advantage of the growth opportunities this change is creating. This report provides projections of the long-term trends of the banking sector based on the underlying macro-economic trends, from now until 2050 for the world's leading economies.

PwC* have prepared this report to help organisations develop their long-term strategy and plans. Our analysis quantifies the projected size and growth of the banking sectors for different economies. We identify the projected timing of the key transitions when the emerging economies become leading players. And crucially, we demonstrate these changes have accelerated since the period prior to the global financial crisis, placing greater demands on industry leaders to respond effectively to these opportunities.

The recent global financial crisis shook the world economy and set in motion significant changes to the banking industry. In this report we present updated projections on how large we expect the banking industry to become in the world's largest economies over the next 40 years, building on our 2007 report on this same topic that was produced prior to the onset of the financial crisis,1 and our updated GDP projections published earlier this year.2