What do we understand under "banks"? If keeping with the simply notion of "stores funds and provides debit cards", the most common usage in EU, especially east, banks were deeply disrupted. Revolut and Wise took a large segment of the youth, who now also got hooked on more services like savings accounts and stocks. They have startup-like culture while being registered as standard banks. Obviously their services, quality and support are lightyears ahead of any traditional financial institution.
I'm a happy Revolut customer. Their app is great and it has features that banks here in Italy don't (or if they do they always charge it, that's why I'm trying to slowly break away from them). Banking in Italy is the worst of the worst. They are extremely well trained to make you waste time. Avoid at all costs Banco Posta. People are not just inefficent, they have absolutely no idea about anything you ask them and they love to make you wait eternally. I have recently asked for more information about a loan at another bank and surprisingly they refuse to send me a formal document to read all the terms and conditions. They literally sent me a plain text email with some numbers, when I required them formal details (the famous "small letter") about it they simply didn't reply.
They are profitable for a few years now, afaik visa/master pays you a share of their profit each time customer makes a transaction(i.e. share of merchant fee). There are also credits, loans, exchange fees, subscription fees i.e. a lot products that make them money.
