[0] Indeed, 'branch' is the correct term. For retail business 'branch' is the bricks and mortar space you see on a high streets for retail customers including

[0] Indeed, 'branch' is the correct term. For retail business 'branch' is the bricks and mortar space you see on a high streets for retail customers including SMEs, and for institutional 'branch' is usually head office of the country (but the only thing that matters is the relationship manager that looks after individual customers for institutional customers, the handling of business done in a shared service centre somewhere offshore). Challenger banks, that don't have branches (well, they do in the regulatory sense, but not in the customer service sense) all seem to use MasterCard (please correct if Visa also serve them), so I'm sure there's a deal there somewhere but I'm also sure they are required by regulators to run their own general ledger as independently licensed banks, and yes existing infrastructure (it's actually quite simple to set up an ATM network of your own using existing protocols and networks). ATM withdrawals are transaction-free for the user. A challenger to payment systems is FasterPayments providing RTGS payments at low cost, who are now expanding in Hong Kong/HKD (and perhaps more). They (challenger banks in the EU) do have very low interest rates, but seems targeted for low balances and perhaps the business model is to take advantage of PSD2 in the future for brand and financial management, I don't know, N26 makes a big deal of travel insurance and value-added services for a monthly fee of 10-15 EUR. PSD2 destroys the traditional concept of brand of a bank simply leaving the brand of the service. Part of my background is setting up and managing shared service centres for institutional businesses, so I'm looking somewhat from the outside in the retail space as a user, but an avid user.