<![CDATA[Traditional banks have long operated under a “fortress model” built on regulatory protection, proprietary infrastructure, and closed value chains, but fintech competition is pressing them toward open and collaborative ecosystems. Prior studies examine fintech disruption, open banking, and bank-fintech partnerships separately, leaving unclear how banks’ strategic identity changes. This study examines how incumbent banks reinterpret their competitiveness and redesign their value proposition through cross-industry partnerships, Application Programming Interface (API)-based services, digital onboarding, and modular financial platforms. A qualitative multi-case study was conducted using document analysis of regulatory frameworks, strategic reports, and partnership announcements from 2021 onward, covering purposively selected banks in Asia and Europe. Thematic coding and a three-level rating of four analytical dimensions were used to derive three transformation archetypes, namely Digitalized Fortress, Hybrid Value Orchestrator, and Ecosystem Platform Leader. The results show that banks integrating digital capabilities, organizational ambidexterity, and innovation governance tend to reposition themselves as orchestrators, and that partnership quantity does not equate to transformation depth. The pace and depth of this shift vary with legacy system rigidity, cultural inertia, and regulatory openness. The study concludes that ecosystem integration is a potential but not universally inevitable trajectory, requiring strategic clarity, technological interoperability, and trust-based collaboration. The future of banking is thus defined not by digital adoption alone but by institutional adaptability and cooperative value creation.]]>
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