Setting that aside, you missed the "deregulated" part.
As I understand it (and I grant my understanding is pretty cursory) Germany has a much stronger central regulating body, and is subject to overall EU regulations as well.
The US has multiple regional banking authorities and a ton of responsibility is delegated to the states, and in general government intervention is seen as a last resort.
So it's both structural and cultural.
Still, the absolute number itself seems to be not really the issue here. (I assume the number of US banks has similarly declined in the US, as fusions reduce cost.)
> Setting that aside, you missed the "deregulated" part.
Yeah, that part I don't object to.
We really don't have any microbanks that need to roll out their own tech for everything - most are just part of the larger banks, and get all the infrastructure provided for them.
The US has literally thousands of small regional banks across 50 fairly independent states.
Rolling out major new technologies in that environment is far far harder.