Is life getting harder or easier for banks?

The conference I presented at last week in Barcelona focused
upon future banking, and we had an audience of international bank
managers from around the world.  The conference organiser gave me the
opportunity to ask some questions of the audience.  You know the sort
of thing, where you have those nice voting buttons arranged around the
tables.

So here's the a couple of the questions I asked and the answers. 

What is the biggest challenge for a bank today?

Managing a global operation                                         26%
Creating a differentiated product and service                  15%
Motivating staff                                                              9%
Satisfying corporate customer’s demands                        6%
Regulatory changes such as SEPA and MiFID                 6%
Dealing with technology                                                 3%       

With 35% saying all of these are challenges.

I
then asked whether banking was more or less difficult ten years ago
(pre-internet and mobile), five years ago (post-internet and mobile)
and whether the guys thought it would be more or less difficult in five
years time. 

Here's their views:

Is banking                           than 1997    than 2002    in 2012

A Lot More Difficult                    37%            18%          18% 

A Little Bit More Difficult              25%           49%           46% 

About the same                         15%           25%            23%

A Little Bit Easier                        5%              5%            5% 

A Lot Easier                              18%              5%             5%

In
other words, banking was a lot more difficult ten years ago, and is
continuing to be difficult.  Interesting that most of the guys think it
was just as difficult five years ago as it will be in five years time.

Does it ever get easier and what would you have said?