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I could claim that there won't be any independent neobanks left in 10 years. Crystalball gazing is easy but it means nothing - like this  Mobile Commerce article says, "Each of the last 5 years were (sic) deemed to be the ‘tipping point’ for mobile payments". To me, the here and now matters much more. And, on that count, banks are doing very well, thank you. Per the WSJ article I've cited earlier, US banks' profits are at a record high. According to FORTUNE (http://fortune.com/global500/banco-santander-73/), Santander - a Spanish bank - made a profit of EUR 5.8B, which was up by a whopping 104% from the previous year. Even if there's a reliable source to back the sweeping statement that "UK Banks are really struggling", I strongly suspect that multibillion dollar fines have contributed to that situation far more than any right or wrong decisions around channel mix.

Even Celent advises limiting feature sets in different channels including mobile: 

"...we don’t think that all channels must offer the same functionality" 

http://thefinancialbrand.com/49871/digital-banking-omnichannel-definition/"

In a Q&A a year or two ago, I'd cited the example of ICICI Tab Banking in India and had wondered why banks couldn’t redeploy their tellers to visit customers at their offices or homes to sell new products. While I'm not able to find the Q&A section now, I remember someone commenting at the time something to the effect that, while such things may happen in India etc., bankers will never visit customers in UK. Well, now we have Barclays doing just that in UK. Kudos to Barclays for adapting technology to solve a genuine problem and not for the sake of technology. This also goes to show how a lot of sensible change can happen even in 2 years whereas not much of juvenile change will happen even after 10 years.

@JamesP: I was endorsing only your statement that "digital innovation is not necessarily cheap and may not immediately have an impact on profits". Personally, all my banks have expanded adequately into digital channels, while at the same time using their branches to do what they do best in branches, namely, sell. With whatever mix of channels they have currently, the banking sector's profits are are near record highs (http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-banking-industry-profits-racing-to-near-record-levels-1407773976). If digital-only competitors have such low cost of transaction, why're they still dependent upon VC funding or selling out to banks? If anyone is going to become extinct, it will be the VCs (pre-IPO) or the common man (post-IPO) who fund them at their inflated valuations.

While we dream on about what can be and should be, here's the reality:

Fate Of Predictive Analytics After Obama Credit Card Decline

Which hero / heroine will want to have the ignominy of rejection of his card payment captured on film? Or risk becoming the laughing stock of his fan club when his NFC transaction fails for a variety of reasons including low battery, poor network strength, and so on?

That said, sci-fi movies are an ideal place for showcasing such payments.

Interestingly, in its latest ad campaign, India's leading TELCO Airtel doesn't even try to claim that its VC solutions are cheaper.  

https://twitter.com/GTM360/status/557545907705905152

The focus is on time saved via VC, which is not a benefit in our context of in-person or video teller at branch.

@UlrichR:

TY for your comment. We recently had to carry out a series of interviews lasting 6-8 hours with an outstation job candidate. Common wisdom dictated that we used VC. However, when we totted up the bandwidth and other costs, we discovered that to-and-fro air tickets actually proved cheaper! Not to mention the in-person option delivered a much better experience. The point is, the digital-only model may not be as low cost as it's made out to be. Like I pointed out in my comment here, "@JamesP is spot on: If the digital-only model really had such a low-cost footprint as it's touted to be, why're UBER, OlaCabs and other "asset-light aggregators" raising 100s of million / billions of dollars of capital?”

IMHO, the choice of channel mix has to go beyond cost alone and look at revenue and profitability: So, to answer your question, it depends upon the revenue / cost / profit of multiple bankers and higher close rate of the branch option versus that of a single banker, multiple video tellers, bandwidth and lower close rates of the remote option.

@StanleyE:

TY for your comment. I largely agree with your view. That said, as a technology marketer, I do believe that relationship and technology are not mutually exclusive! I remember a technology from a company called Zoot or something like that which suggests what targeted offers bank tellers can make to customers standing in front of them. As I remember, it was rated as a Top 10 fintech product by Forrester or some other leading analyst a couple of years ago.

@JamesP is spot on: If the digital-only model really had such a low-cost footprint as it's touted to be, why're UBER, OlaCabs and other "asset-light aggregators" raising 100s of million / billions of dollars of capital? Meanwhile, when was the last time anyone bought a financial product from a remote channel? I thought so, too. IMO, therein lies the Secret Of Survival Of Bank Branches.

With TESCO Bank's spanking new systems causing even longer downtimes, is it already time to estimate the size of market of open systems transforming to legacy?