To answer your first question, I believe that *eventually* a left handed crocheting niche bank is realistic. But that’s reeeaaaallly far down the long tail and I seriously doubt would be one of the first niche banks we see. What’s more likely in the short term are banks that are on the long tail (but not quite so far down) that center around very real and mainstream passions. For instance, millions upon millions of people have passions for things like sports, beer, wine, dogs, their children, etc. I foresee banks that tap into these passions.

To your second point, you’re right—niche banks are not going to convert brick-and-mortar customers to online-only experiences overnight. Today there are millions of customers using Internet direct banks, though, all getting a pretty generic experience that’s not really much different than the generic brick-and-mortar experience, except that it takes place online. My vision for how niche banking works in the physical world is not as clear…in fact I’m not sure it would work at all. But that’s the case with most long tail stuff—for instance a brick-and-mortar bookstore couldn’t be viable selling most of the stuff Amazon.com can sell.

And in thinking about what you’ve said here, it seems like the appeal here would have to be for customers willing to do their banking online – and for the bankers who are interested in offering products exclusively or almost exclusively online. Do you think we’re ready for this shift from brick and mortar to an entirely online experience? And is there a place here for financial institutions that may not want to be exclusively online banks?