The companies that win are the ones with the best systems.

“I need to get out of my bubble.”
That’s what a banking exec said to me last week at FiBe conference in Berlin.
And it stuck with me - because it was honest and refreshingly self-aware.

It also captured something I felt throughout the event: the gap between how fintechs operate — and how traditional banks still try to.

While Klarna, Revolut or N26 are building at full speed, releasing new features, testing new markets, pushing boundaries… legacy banks are aligning departments, preparing steering committee decks, and wondering why things aren’t moving.

It’s not about who’s smarter. I met brilliant people on both sides. It's about structures.

Fintechs move fast because they’re built for it: Autonomous teams, fast decisions, real ownership. They don’t always get it right. But they learn, and they ship constantly.

Traditional banks, on the other hand, have good reasons for being cautious: They operate at scale, under heavy regulation, with decades of trust on the line. They can’t just “move fast and break things”. They need to get it right — the first time.

But the tradeoff is real. And somewhere between governance and alignment loops, the spark often fades.

So I sketched a 2x2 matrix. Executional speed on one axis. Ownership on the other.

Top right is “Klarna Mode”: fast teams, real decisions, visible output.
Bottom left is the “Dead Zone”: slow, centralised, and stuck in its own process logic.

But what's really interesting is the "Committee Labyrinth": the place where smart people want to move fast – but can not. Because there is no real strategy in place. Because the good ideas are killed in committees. Because great products never see the light of the day.

That's the real danger. And that's where many legacy banks still operate today. They have brilliant people and modern organizational structures. But they still don't get their ventures and digital products off the ground fast enough.

Maybe it’s time more people got out of their bubble. And maybe it’s time to build structures where speed and safety don’t have to be enemies.