While tech juggernauts including Amazon, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. are already expanding in the U.S. into areas such as payments or lending, they aren’t amassing deposits. That’s because federal laws prevents companies from combining commercial ventures with fully fledged banks.

Instead, du Toit predicts, banks will partner with Amazon and others. Lenders would manufacture financial products, and tech giants would serve as distribution and servicing channels. In other words, what Amazon already does with consumer goods.

Yet because distribution accounts for two-thirds of banking profits, according to a McKinsey & Co. report, banks may not love being relegated to mere factories for mortgages and credit cards.

And because Amazon wouldn’t have to pay to lure customers -- it already has millions of them -- it could afford to set up digital accounts without “all the nuisance fees and relatively high minimum balances” that lenders impose, du Toit said. That would appeal to young consumers who are most likely to try new things, he said.

It helps that Amazon is well regarded by consumers. Asked to rank the trustworthiness of financial and tech institutions, survey respondents typically listed banks highest, followed by PayPal Holdings Inc. and Amazon. Apple, Google and Microsoft Corp. came next, beating social media.

“It’s just a matter of time before we see the big tech players enter retail banking in the U.S.,” du Toit said. “You’re going to see a Darwinian battle between banks and tech firms, and some surprising combinations on how they get to market.”

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