A new study from Juniper Research expects fintech revenue will grow 59 percent over the next five years. The digital technology research and consulting firm predicted fintech revenue to increase from $263 billion this year to $638 billion in 2024.

“Every industry is going through a digital transformation, including financial services,” said Niall Cameron, global head of corporate and institutional digital at HSBC, in an April blog post. “New technologies offer significant opportunities, but companies need to embrace them to avoid falling behind.”

According to the report, titled Fintech Futures: Leading Innovators, Segment Analysis & Regional Readiness 2019-2024, many financial institutions are partnering with fintech companies when they can’t create similar products. A Bank Innovation poll in March found 30% of respondents thought partnerships between FIs and fintechs were most valuable in creating better customer experience. Bank acquisitions of fintech firms, however, have grown more slowly.

Partnerships increasingly will become the norm, as distinction between the fintech suppliers and traditional incumbents will blur in the 2020s, as digital engagement will become the norm, report author Michael Larner said in a statement. As a result, legacy banks increasingly are looking to fintech companies as partners instead of competitors.

“Rather than identifying digital disruptors as threats, BBVA seeks to collaborate with them in a way that re-imagines banks for the 21st century and furthers its own digital transformation,” Pepe Olalla, the USA head of strategy and global business at BBVA, said in an email to Bank Innovation. “The open platform enables fintech companies to become our clients/partners. It gives them access to our APIs, which they can combine with their own technology to design disruptive business models. Our goals are to become a better partner to fintech companies and to develop a new ‘banking as a service’ business.”