Digitisation is transforming retail banking. FinTech and BigTech firms are redefining payments, lending, and deposits – unbundling traditional models and opening new pathways for innovation and competition. Yet, many of these new entrants depend on partnerships with established banks, blurring the line between competition and co-operation, and potentially entrenching existing market power. At the same time, BigTech’s data advantages and ecosystem reach raise concerns about leveraging dominance from digital markets into financial services. This session examines how technology is reshaping competition in banking – where innovation meets regulation – and how policy can ensure markets remain open, contestable and resilient.

Efficiencies have long played a role in merger control – but the way we think about them is changing. Competition authorities are increasingly challenged to look beyond price effects to capture dynamic gains such as innovation and technological progress. At the same time, there is growing pressure to factor in wider goals like sustainability or resilience. This session will discuss how the treatment of efficiencies is evolving – from how firms use them in deal strategies to their impact on remedies and case outcomes – and where the balance between static and dynamic efficiencies may need to move next.

Over three years after ChatGPT’s launch brought generative AI to global prominence, questions still linger over how competition will evolve in AI markets. The rapid pace of technological change, the concentration of key inputs like data and computing power, and the growing role of partnerships and ecosystems are all reshaping the landscape. Building on recent OECD work, this session will take stock of the current state of competition across the AI stack – from foundational models to downstream applications – and explore what lies in store for competition policy in this fast-moving field space.

Remedies are where competition enforcement meets reality – they turn theory into practice by fixing problems and restoring healthy markets. But designing remedies that truly work is no easy task: they must be both practical and effective, and even then, success is never guaranteed. This session will delve into what makes remedies succeed or fail, weighing the pros and cons of different approaches and the challenges of meeting legal standards, with a spotlight on specific markets.