What does the future of banking look like, and are we moving toward a fully cashless economy?

Can we have a cashless society? Sure we can. Will we have one? Probably not. Whilst government's etc all over the world are trying to gain more control over how money is issued, transacted and deposited/credited, cash still remains a very large player in the small value domestic payments (10,000s of examples can be cited). The speed at which a cash transaction can be done, is of no match to digital system (at present). Before pundits start bashing me on this last statement, please think outside the developed world and look at the developing world and some of the emerging markets.

Eventually, all governments would like to you trade with a value-transfer system that they (the government) would like to track. I personally don't think this will happen in the next 15-20 years. If push comes to shove, the public will come out with its own value transfer system (a parallel monetary system) and use that. Look at Bitcoin, no borders, no control. Who is to say that a couple of years down the road, more advanced versions of Ripple or Bitcoin would be the norm as to who payments are transacted amongst those who do not trust the government tracking their spend.

The banking future is distributed. Future banks would be more or less like the social media giants of today. Value creation, transfer and deposit would be one of the functions they would be providing.