If you are a big bank, you already have all the licenses and can do everything so what difference does that regulation make in practice?
Germany is heading / has bet on a completely different direction than actual real world out there is moving to. The unability to admit massive failures and adapt is glaringly obvious even from outside, and literally fucks up whole EU left and right. Germany and its population has tremendous potential, we all know it, yet it looks like headless chicken running around yard with no positive future that I can see.
I don't care who will rule there, nobody outside understands nor cares about detailed internals of Germany. But, for a change, please put there somebody competent who can steer country and a bit whole continent as a consequence, has respect of peers and adversaries and can do necessary changes to keep it all afloat. Current and past leadership was and is... don't have a nice name, so better not describe it. Massive damage across whole EU. Weak EU then invites dictators to try to test its strength.
I'm sure the aging population doesn't help, but to me the primary inertia comes from how difficult it is to switch. You can take your phone number with you while changing providers, you can't do that with your bank account. They have "services" that are supposed to handle that, but having dealt with their investment arms and moving a broker account from one bank to another, I wouldn't trust them to not mess it up, and suddenly my rent isn't getting paid. So I'd have to do it myself, which will make me deal with lots of stupid systems and processes and cost a hours upon hours. I'd need to save 100% of my banking fees (which are way too high) for a decade or two to make that worthwhile.
Make switching banks as easy as switching phone providers and you'll get some competition going.
Moreover, especially after the Wirecard scandal, I wouldn't trust any company that doesn't have a banking license. Without a banking license they can nuke my entire account and I will be the only responsible idiot for that.
Btw, the US system is exploitative and decades behind what the worst European countries have. NFC payments became a thing after Apple brought them to the US. Europeans, heck, Middle Eastern countries were already using NFC EMV payments for 5 years by then. The technologically best and most trustworthy banks are usually from Northwestern Europe so look for Nordics and the Netherlands, if you would like to see a modern but not totally exploitative banking looks like.
