fintech

Revolut’s 2026 banking-license push, alongside OnePay’s $50B annualized-payments scale, marks coverage shifting toward regulated fintech platforms expanding core banking services.

Who they are

Fintech appears in this coverage as a broad financial-technology sector rather than a single operating company, spanning digital banks, payments apps, crypto infrastructure, investing platforms and venture-backed startups. Stories repeatedly use it to connect firms such as Revolut, Robinhood, Paytm, Ant Group and OnePay with the regulatory permissions, capital and distribution needed to challenge or augment incumbent financial services.

The recent arc

The latest cycle is centered on fintech’s transition from app-based financial services toward regulated banking and payments infrastructure. Revolut dominates that thread: it secured a UK banking license in July 2024, then a full license in March 2026 after a four-year wait, enabling lending expansion; its reported 2025 revenue and pretax-profit growth reinforced the importance of that regulatory breakthrough. Its subsequent decision to pursue a US banking license rather than buy a US lender shows licensing becoming a strategic route to expansion.

The recent arc

Coverage also broadened from digital banks into the rails and policy environment around them. Bloomberg reported that Walmart-backed OnePay had reached 6 million monthly active users and $50 billion in annualized payments, while Polygon’s acquisitions of Coinme and Sequence were framed as a push into stablecoin and fintech infrastructure against Stripe. Reuters’ report on a Trump executive order directing agencies and the Federal Reserve to review policies that could support fintech growth put access to payment accounts and regulatory posture at the center of the sector’s next phase.

The tension

The central tension is whether fintech firms can convert product reach into durable, regulated financial infrastructure before rivals do. Revolut’s banking approvals illustrate the friction of operating under bank regulation, while OnePay’s Walmart backing points to large consumer platforms using distribution to build payment businesses. Meanwhile, stablecoin infrastructure, including Polygon’s strategy, creates a parallel competitive track against established payments players such as Stripe; policy shifts may determine which model gains the easier path to scale.

Why it matters

If this trajectory holds, the sector’s defining contest will be less about adding financial features and more about controlling the licenses, payment-account access and infrastructure behind them. That could favor companies able to pair customer scale with regulatory execution, but the outcome remains uncertain: lighter policy treatment may accelerate entrants, while bank licensing, consumer protection and the viability of stablecoin-based systems remain consequential constraints.

Related: Revolut · Ant Group · IPO · Revolut secures a UK banking license, ending a more-than-three-year-lo · Revolut says it has secured a full banking license from UK regulators