The card providers, on the other hand, designed their interactions as transactional, not intelligent. The plastic in our wallet contained zero intelligence. I mean, the card displayed our name, expiration date, a card security code, the signature, a magnetic strip, and sometimes an EMV chip. However, these features only did one thing: Validate our identity. They did not tell us whether we could afford what we wanted to buy, how much we were spending in each category, or any additional context.

While the titans assumed the status quo, consumer buying behavior started shifting. The financial crisis brought about a big change in the consumer mindset. The housing bubble, issues with student education loan lending and the looming threat of the credit bubble forced consumers to swing from spend before save mindset to a save before spend mindset. The consumer, once trained to buy impulsively, started to trust the wisdom of the crowd instead. We were no longer interested in the purchase without understanding the impact on our financial health.

The shift in buying behavior started with the consumer getting their hands on the smart phone, which was launched as a content consumption device, evolved in the last decade to add features like location awareness, first with GPS capabilities and then with Beacon signal capabilities that help pinpoint someone's location within retail stores.

The smart phone and social media platforms fundamentally changed the consumers' usage behavior. Smart phone platforms gave birth to an application and hardware eco-system that brought contextual insight directly to consumers. The ecosystem allowed measurement, analysis and insight being delivered to the consumer in real-time for pretty much everything. Increasing consumer expectations for insights at each touch point in the user experience lifecycle.

While the tectonic plates were shifting, the banks and credit card companies held on to old rules. For example, they continued pushing paper with signatures around when Generation Z refused to learn how to sign. In other words, while the larger market was trying to learn the art of risk mitigation, the financial institutions were clinging to risk absorption tactics.

During the same time, we experienced a FinTech revolution. New banking, payment and authentication solutions like those enabled and offered by companies like Apple, Google and PayPal offered the same capabilities (banking and payments) with an upgrade in reliability, faster transactions, better risk algorithm, and faster cash availability. Designed for the internet from the ground up, these players were slowly taking market share away from the traditional financial institutions.

The FinTechs blurred the lines of capability and control. Control on the hardware, operating system and the communication network gave firms like Apple, Google and PayPal a lot of leverage. They started offering digital wallets to facilitate online payments that would bypass the traditional bank and credit card firms' network. The introduction of NFC hardware capabilities furthered their confidence. Now, they had location, context and payment information passing through their network. Who owned the network now?

Once location and context were well understood, all retailers/merchants, even cab drivers thanks to Uber and Lyft, started to make buying or paying for service seamless for the buyer. Basically, POS became a hurdle in the purchase experience. We continued to need credit. We did not need the credit card any longer.

Back in the day, banking was done at a designated location. Customers would have to go to the bank to deal with money matters and serviced by multiple human beings. With location and context awareness, banks do business where the customers are in real time. No more paper trails. No more signing.

Maybe banks and credit card firms had their moment and served their purpose well. Maybe it was time for them to be gone. What could they have done differently to adapt to the winds of change? What would they do if they still had time?

Indy Sawhney is general manager & client partner-banking & financial services at Mindtree. He can be reached at 908-604-8080 or [email protected].