Across a swathe of industries, disruption has become a buzzword for the sweeping competitive changes wrought by the power of rapidly evolving technology and data. In Latin America’s financial industry the phenomenon is redefining how payments are made, how cash is lent and, quite possibly, where money is kept.“We are seeing disruption in all aspects of the industry,” says Ruth Polachek, head of Citi’s financial technology (fintech) accelerator in Israel. “We are innovating but, as a bank, we cannot do it on our own. The disruption is helping all of us to grow.”Polachek sees disruption happeninggradually, but research from Scratch, a consulting division of US media company Viacom, indicates that the millennial generation could shake things up quickly.

Scratch conducted a three-year survey of millennials, the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, and found that 68% said the way money is accessed would be different in five years, 70% said the way things are paid for would change and 33% said they would not need a bank account in the future. A whopping 71% said they would rather go to the dentist than listen to what banks have to say.