No one would ever accuse banking of being a homogeneous industry. There was an effort in the early aughts to create an XML standard for the industry. It took years to complete.

This is why Tuesday’s announcement that an internet of things standards alliance group was formed should be noticed by bankers for two reasons: a) there remains a plethora of technology standards the industry needs to develop and b) it marks a turning point for the internet of things.

AllSeen Alliance, as it’s called, will take on the monumental, innovation-accelerating task of creating and maintaining unified standards for device-to-device communication.

That’s a mouthful. Here’s what it really means: You will have a smarter fridge next year rather than in 2020 — all because your fridge and your TV and the APIs they run on will share a common brain.

The internet of things aims to digitally connect, well, everything. Nest is the most advanced producer of connected devices, most famously an iPhone-controlled thermostat.

But any device that is connected — including a thermostat — ends up having financial services implications. Could credit underwriting, for example, one day include data derived from such devices that accurately divine a household’s spending? And when your milk supply gets low, that “networked” refrigerator will need a payments mechanism to replenish the shelves.

I asked a banker who is deeply involved in creating new banking applications for his views on the AllSeen Alliance.  Here’s what he said:

This is a fascinating space — and opens up significant opportunities to keep customers connected and fully enabled — essentially everywhere they go and across all devices they interact with. This alongside the emerging the capability of things such as Apples iBeacon shows the power for [banks] to be an intrinsic part of the customer’s ongoing journey, rather than being seen as a single event.

This aligns really well with our strategy, particularly in the way we are creating device-agnostic internet banking experiences that offer consistent and full experiences across all devices ( PC, tablet and mobile — and which can extend to the smart watch or smart TV, even their fridge!) To us, it is about having the capability to build ongoing and linked conversations across all interaction channels — our ability to understand customers and help them create their financial success. This means we need to be part of their daily lives, accessible 24-7, regardless of where they are in the world. For us, it’s the customer who is mobile — technology is just enabling them.

This, my friends, is what the internet of things is all about.