The internet age was supposed to herald hard times for the middleman. Customers, so it was said, would flock to the web to buy products and services faster, cheaper and more transparently than in shops or through intermediaries. Disinter-mediation has indeed come about, as any out-of-work travel agent or bookseller will tell you. Yet retail bankers-the middlemen between savers and borrowers—have been surprisingly untouched.
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