One of the largest annual technology trade fairs in the Southern Hemisphere, CeBIT, opened in Sydney this week.  The conference and presentation program of day one featured a half day series exploring the place of fintechs in the banking sector.A panel discussion that promised to explore "disruption in banking", was subheaded: "how neobanks, startups, digital and mobile [will] change the future of banking".Eric Wilson, chief executive officer and founder of Xinja, a self-described "neobank" set out to redefine these terms from the start. "We need to differentiate between a neobank and a digital bank," Wilson said. "[A neobank] is not about stuffing the legacy model into a digital channel. It's not about having a mobile-only app for big banking products."He suggested a neobank was indeed a different way of banking, meeting "an appetite for independent banking not associated with established brands."Wilson also said that there was enthusiasm for a simpler form of basic banking, and when Xinja embarked on a crowdfunding exercise, looking to raise A$500,000 by allowing future customers own a piece of the bank, the funds were raised in four hours.  Continuing on past their minimum target, more than $2.7 million was crowdfunded in a few days along with a waiting list of "thousands" wanting to sign up as customers. "We had 1000 people sign up in 90 seconds at one stage," Wilson said.Bronwyn Yam, director of product at Tyro, arguably Australia's most successful fintech bank, said that her firm was able to move closer to its SME customers, as well as being unencumbered by legacy systems. "The pain points of SME owners are not [the minutiae] in banking but in running their businesses better," she said.This sentiment was echoed among their fellow panellists, largely drawing on the UK for guidance as to how the sector might develop.Dominic Pym, founder of spending pattern and savings target platform Up - among several other fintech ventures - suggested there were lessons to be learned from the US, where the differences in financial services have been created in adjacent industries, such as investment. He used the example of robinhood.com (a fee-free online investment platform).He later observed: "if there is one thing the banks have missed in the last ten years, it's compassion, rather than technology."Martin McCann, CEO and co-founder of Trade Ledger, a platform that uses digital data from business supply chains to assess credit risk in real time, was in no doubt what the biggest change to hit the banking sector will be: "Open banking," he said, adding that Australia had set "probably the most aggressive time line and scope anywhere, a credit to the government and the regulators. "It's the biggest change to banking since the ATM."