There's little wanderlust around fintechs and much cynicism about the state of play in this much hyped industry sector, this week's assessment of competition in finance from the Productivity Commission argues.In line with the sector's optimism, the final report from the commission concedes "the expansion of the fintech sector provides an avenue for change in the financial system" and that "Open Banking and the new consumer data right, should assist new challenger banks." ?When it comes to "big tech" - mainly the Silicon Valley set  - the PC report sheds light on the lacklustre debut in banking of the most celebrated name of them all."While big tech companies have significant potential to change the nature of competition in financial services, to date they have had limited impact," the report says. "For example, ANZ is the only major bank to offer Apple Pay, and its customers made fewer than 0.5 per cent of credit/debit card transactions using mobile wallets in the financial year 2016-17, and spent less than 0.01 per cent of the value in December 2017," it says. The Productivity Commission's analysis is based on ANZ's overlooked assessment a few months ago by Steve Price, the bank's senior manager for everyday banking at the Bluenotes website.While "a plethora of start-up fintechs have emerged in Australia …. Few are competing directly" against banks or insurers, the report points out."Incumbents can be seen as a provider, partner, investor or acquirer to a fintech business. In an Ernst & Young survey … only 36 per cent of fintechs said their biggest competitors were incumbents in 2017."There is now more engagement and there is broader recognition of the potential for collaboration."Underwhelmed by the vitality of this sector, the commission pointed out that by April 2018, just six businesses had used the fintech licensing exemption, or "regulatory sandbox" of ASIC 2018.This lead to the Commission's conclusion that it "considers that this overall trend towards collaboration between fintechs and incumbents may improve efficiency of operations and reduce transaction costs for both fintechs and incumbents. It could also result in a greater range of consumer-oriented products that are complementary to those on offer by incumbents. "But such collaboration would also likely reduce the potential for these new entrants to be a source of competition."