Beyond Banks: Opportunities, Sovereignty, and the Future of the Financial System
Payments, investments, financing, e-banking, and portfolio management are no longer entirely within the domain of banking but have shifted to applications, digital ecosystems, and data-based technologies.
The idea put forward by Dan Awrey in the book Beyond Banks (2026) is highly relevant to Indonesia. What once seemed like an academic prediction is now a reality in the daily lives of Indonesian society.
In the last decade, financial digitalisation has developed rapidly through QRIS, digital wallets, mobile banking, fintech lending, and buy now pay later services. This change is not merely technological innovation but a fundamental transformation in how society utilises financial system services.
On one hand, this development brings significant benefits. Digitalisation has successfully opened access to financial services for millions of residents previously unreachable by banks. Small traders can now receive digital payments.
SME actors gain faster access to financing. The young generation or Gen-Z is familiar with the financial system through digital, modern, and user-friendly applications. In certain contexts, technology has expanded economic inclusion in a more democratic manner.
However, on the other hand, this transformation also presents new challenges that need to be understood critically. As financial services increasingly rely on digital platforms, data ownership becomes a new source of economic power.
Consumption patterns, transaction behaviours, and financial preferences are gradually concentrated in data technology ecosystems with infinite analytical capacity. This is where the issue of digital sovereignty becomes important. Those who control the data ultimately also have significant influence over societal economic behaviour.
Empirical experience shows that technological developments often move faster than regulations. Phenomena such as illegal fintech, misuse of personal data, digital fraud, and consumer debt traps serve as important lessons that financial literacy and consumer protection must advance at least as quickly as innovation. Digitalisation should not be measured solely by the number of transactions but also by the quality of protection against fraud and financial crime risks.
Indonesia faces a situation that is more or less similar. The country has great potential in the digital economy, but part of its technological infrastructure still depends on global ecosystems. Therefore, the main challenge is not to reject innovation but to ensure that it progresses alongside societal protection and national interests.
Another issue is the digital literacy gap. Many users of digital financial services do not fully understand the risks, such as hidden interest systems, promises of rewards, OTP security, data misuse, or the legal implications of electronic transactions. In such conditions, society can easily be lured into consumptive behaviour wrapped in technological convenience.
Therefore, digital transformation needs to be built on the principle of balance. Innovation must go hand in hand with ethics, consumer protection, and strong governance.
Technology should enhance public welfare, not create new forms of subtle economic exploitation through digital behavioural manipulation.
Amid these changes, Indonesia actually possesses important assets. The implementation of QRIS by Bank Indonesia demonstrates that the state is still capable of building a relatively independent and inclusive national payment architecture. QRIS is not just a payment instrument but a symbol of the state’s ability to maintain sovereignty in the domestic payment system in an era of global platform dominance.
The transformation towards Beyond Banks therefore does not need to be viewed as a threat to banking but as an opportunity to redefine the role of banks in the future. Banks will no longer merely be places for transactions but must evolve into institutions of trust, risk managers, guardians of stability, and centres for integrating digital financial ecosystems.
In this context, the concept of Universal Banking becomes relevant to consider. Universal banking allows integrated financial services within one ecosystem that encompasses retail banking, commercial banking, investment, and digital services based on super-apps. However, this model requires significant technological investment, strong governance, and regulatory readiness to face increasingly complex risks.
The future of Indonesia’s financial system will ultimately not be determined solely by how quickly technology develops but by the ability of the state, regulators, industry, and society to maintain a balance between innovation, inclusion, stability, and national economic sovereignty.
The important question is no longer whether traditional banking businesses will be reduced but whether Indonesia can ensure that digital transformation truly strengthens societal welfare and safeguards national interests amid the increasingly dominant flow of global platform capitalism.