Investor Jordi Visser has a name for what he thinks is coming to banks: a “bank-pocalypse”. On The Pomp Podcast with host Anthony Pompliano, Visser based the idea on what he calls the SaaS-pocalypse. That was the period when software valuations fell on fear of AI disruption even though earnings held up. Market watchers call this multiple compression: investors pay less for each dollar of earnings, so the stock falls even when the business does not.
Software Numbers Support Half of the Analogy
All figures below use Friday’s settled closes, since markets were shut over the weekend. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (CBOE:IGV) returned -2.58% over the year through Oct. 9. Over the same window, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) gained 16%. This part of Visser’s premise holds up. The de-rating he describes shows up in the returns.
The recent picture complicates it. IGV returned 10.65% over the past month and 6.62% year to date. The de-rating was real, and it has been reversing lately. An comparison built on a decline reads differently once part of that decline is being won back. IGV carries a 0.38% expense ratio, according to its summary prospectus on sec.gov.
Argument One: AI Agents Could End the Passive Customer
Visser’s first claim is that banks make money from customer inertia. Jordi Visser said “individual small businesses have their money in banks that pay them zero yield. That’s really good for the banks.” Visser said AI agents “are not going to make mistakes. They are going to search for the cheapest way to do things.”
A large share of what banks earn on deposits depends on customers leaving money where it sits instead of moving it somewhere that pays more. Software acting on a customer’s behalf would have no such habit.
Visser’s Argument Two: Instant Settlement Ends Float
Float is money in transit between two parties. Whoever holds it in the meantime can earn on it before it arrives. Jordi Visser described it this way: “Somebody gets that float, somebody gets the chance to invest that money for a day, for 3 days, and if it’s instant settlement, it’s not the same.” If money arrives the moment it is sent, there is no window in which to earn on it. Jordi Visser argued that stablecoins and tokenization are pushing toward instant settlement.
What Consumers Could Gain From the Shift
Anthony Pompliano asked, “Is there a positive to this? Like the consumer wins in this scenario?” Visser said yes, adding, “You’d be shocked at how much money the banks take purely on a spread basis from everyone.” In this case, the spread is the gap between what a bank earns on money and what it pays the customer who owns it.
Pompliano also pointed out that coverage of disruption tends to focus on who loses and rarely on what customers gain. Anthony Pompliano then thought that a bank built to be agent-friendly would probably be “pretty valuable”. He offered that as speculation, and nothing in the section ties it to any company.
Bank Stocks Have Not Followed Software So Far
The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (NYSEARCA:KBE) spreads its money across a broad group of banks and financial companies, with most positions near 1% of net assets. It returned 10% over the past year. Whatever comes later, Visser’s bank-pocalypse has not appeared in bank share prices over that period.
The past month looks different. KBE returned -6.18% over the month and 5.77% year to date. So in the same recent month, bank stocks fell while software rose sharply. Nothing we checked explains the bank decline. A one-month move can have many causes. This report covers what prices did and makes no claim about why.
Limits Every Investor Should Weigh
- This is one investor’s forecast, made on a podcast, and Visser gave no date for any of it.
- The software comparison is telling, and it falls short of proof. Banking differs from software in regulation, in how easily customers switch and in who owns the customer relationship.
- Deposit inertia has survived earlier technologies that promised to end it, including online banking and rate-comparison tools.
- The section included no response from a bank, and we did not get one.
What to Watch Next
The thesis turns on how much bank earnings depend on unaware customers. Investors can watch deposit rates, KBE’s returns against IGV and SPY, and bank adoption of AI agents and stablecoin settlement for signs Visser’s forecast is arriving.