There’s change in the air and the revolutionaries are hammering at the palace doors. Do you invite the ringleaders in for negotiations? Or pull up the drawbridge and tell the guards to unleash a hail of arrows from the parapet?

This, in effect, is the choice facing finance firms as the revolution in financial technology gathers pace. It seems intuitively obvious that co-opting the revolutionaries is the best option for long-term survival. But the business landscape is littered with once-great companies that have been humbled by technological revolutions - anyone remember a company named Kodak? - so there are plenty of reasons to think that at least some finance firms will end up with their heads chopped off in front of a mob.