By Futurist Thomas Frey
Banking used to be straightforward: you deposited money, the bank paid you interest, they lent it to others at higher rates, everyone understood the deal. That simplicity died decades ago, replaced by a baroque system of fees, penalties, and charges so complex that even bank employees often can’t explain them.
AI is now analyzing millions of customer accounts, transactions, and fee schedules. What it’s revealing is a systematic extraction economy—a financial system that has quietly evolved to profit from confusion, from mistakes, from the poorest customers, and from complexity that serves no purpose except generating revenue.
The awakening in financial services isn’t just about unfair fees. It’s about revealing an entire industry that restructured itself to profit from customer disadvantage while maintaining the appearance of serving customer interests.
Continue reading… “The Awakening Series Part 5: Financial Services and Banking—The Fee Extraction Economy”