Technological cooperation and product substitution in UK retail banking: the case of customer services

The pervasive implementation of Information Technologies paved the way to significant transformations in the retail banking sector, including organizational changes as well as a broader product range. The central theme that is discussed in this paper is the degree to which the unfolding of a technological trajectory provided incentives to agents for the creation of absorptive capacity and the subsequent array of adjustments in the demand and the supply of banking services. Accordingly, two phenomena are especially relevant for the purpose of this analysis: the emergence of a network structure in the UK retail banking system and the product substitution effects that emerged in the demand side.