1) The Big Stablecoin Play 2) Top Neobanks Globally 3) UK Banks & Fintechs vs. Visa & Mastercard 4) Top AI Companies

Welcome to my newsletter! Each week a few hand-picked topics from the world of fintech, payments and banking with behind-the-scenes analysis!

1) The Big Stablecoin Play

Why would some of the world’s biggest competitors back the same stablecoin platform? And yet, Visa, Mastercard and Stripe are reportedly looking to do exactly that.

Stablecoins are digital currencies designed to solve one of crypto’s biggest problems: volatility.

For years, stablecoins were primarily associated with crypto trading and speculative activity.

What has changed lately, is that attention has shifted from the asset itself to the infrastructure behind it and its potential to transform how money moves.

𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼-𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆:

• Just as the internet created a common infrastructure for the movement of information, stablecoin networks create a common infrastructure for the movement of value.

• Instead of relying on a complex chain of banks, payment systems, correspondents, and intermediaries, participants can connect to the same underlying network to transfer and settle value.

• As more participants connect to that infrastructure, it becomes a platform for payments, treasury, lending, and other financial services.

Which is why the stablecoin market has grown from $4 bn in 2020 to more than $320 bn today.

In turn, this explains why some of the biggest players in financial services have invested heavily in the space:

• 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗲 believes that money movement will become internet-native. Stablecoins allow Stripe to expand beyond payment acceptance into treasury, cross-border, and financial services. It acquired Bridge, a stablecoin orchestration and infrastructure platform, and launched stablecoin financial accounts.

• 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗮’s business depends on being part of how money moves. As stablecoins emerge as an alternative way to transfer and settle value, Visa is integrating stablecoin networks into its existing infrastructure. It now supports stablecoin settlement across multiple blockchains and through its network.

• 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱 is taking a broader ecosystem approach. Rather than focusing on settlement, it is building the capabilities needed for stablecoins to operate at scale across the financial system, including acceptance, remittances, digital identity, and interoperability. This ranges from Crypto Credential, Multi-Token Network, and Mastercard Move to the acquisition of BVNK.

So, the news that Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are reportedly looking to participate in the same stablecoin platform may come as a surprise.

But, in fact, it might make a lot of sense:

• No single company can create a new financial infrastructure on its own.

• Despite their different strategies, they all benefit from broader stablecoin adoption.

• A common platform could help solve shared challenges such as interoperability, liquidity, connectivity, and scale, while still allowing individual plays.

Stablecoins are no longer a crypto speculative play. They have become the industry’s biggest next bet.

Opinions and graphics: Panagiotis Kriaris

2) Top Neobanks Globally

What are the world’s top neobanks - and what is driving the rankings?

Here’s what stands out:

𝟭. Revolut has established itself as the highest-valued neobank globally. Its success is built on becoming a multi-product financial platform spanning payments, FX, wealth, trading, subscriptions, and increasingly business banking. A large part of the valuation reflects the breadth of monetisation (beyond customer growth).

𝟮. Nubank is one of the most remarkable fintech success stories. It built scale through financial inclusion, bringing millions of underbanked customers into the formal financial system while proving that digital banking can be highly profitable in emerging markets.

𝟯. WeBank has a very different model. Rather than acquiring customers directly, it is deeply embedded into China’s digital ecosystem, allowing it to reach hundreds of millions of users through platform distribution rather than traditional banking channels.

𝟰. It is clear that the largest players are no longer competing on customer acquisition alone. The focus has shifted to monetisation, engagement, and the ability to capture a greater share of a customer’s financial life.

𝟱. Geography plays an important role. The rankings are shaped by local market structures, regulation, demographics, and consumer behaviour.

𝟲. The neobank definition is becoming blurred. Wise, Paytm, and PayPay have reached valuations comparable to many digital banks despite not operating as traditional banks. The market now groups together digital banks, payment platforms, wallets, and financial super apps for the single reason that they compete for the same customer relationships and financial activity.

𝟳. The competitive battleground is shifting from individual products to platforms. The most valuable players are expanding beyond payments, accounts, or lending to capture a larger share of the customer relationship, combining multiple financial and non-financial services within a single ecosystem.

𝟴. Scale is important, but it is on its own no longer enough. The leaders have proven they can turn large customer bases into consistently profitable businesses.

𝟵. The next play will be defined by AI. The first generation of neobanks digitised banking. The next generation will use AI to personalise products, automate operations, improve risk management, and ultimately increase the value generated from every customer relationship.

𝗠𝘆 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝘀 that there is no single blueprint for building a successful neobank.

The top players have fundamentally different models. Contrary to common perception, what they share is not technology, but the ability to build scale, trust, and distribution in different ways in their respective markets.

Opinions and graphics: Panagiotis Kriaris

3) UK Banks & Fintechs vs. Visa & Mastercard

UK banks and fintechs have united to take on Visa and Mastercard. They just launched a new payment scheme to challenge the dominance of cards.

This is the first new payment scheme launched in the UK since Faster Payments in 2008. And it says a lot both about what’s at stake and why banks and fintechs decided to join forces.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲:

• Back in 2018, the UK launched Open Banking to increase competition in payments and reduce dependence on card networks.

• However, adoption remained concentrated in a limited number of use cases, primarily one-off payments. The categories that drive the largest payment volumes (and revenues) - recurring payments, subscriptions, utility bills, and everyday commerce - remained dominated by card schemes.

𝗪𝗵𝘆?

• Because Open Banking has not managed to solve the commercial and operating model around it.

• The A2A rails are not enough. They lack the shared rules and incentives (which the schemes have spent decades building and refining) needed to make A2A payments work at scale.

𝗦𝗼, 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗞 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗱 was unite around building exactly that:

• A common framework defining how A2A payments operate, including responsibilities and dispute handling.

• A commercial model designed to encourage adoption across the ecosystem.

• Support for recurring A2A payments, enabling Open Banking to compete for subscriptions, recurring billing, and other payment categories traditionally dominated by cards.

• Consumer protections and operating standards designed to build trust and support adoption at scale.

In other words, the UK is trying to do for A2A payments what Visa and Mastercard did for cards.

They call it the UK Payments Initiative Ltd (UKPI) and it is supposed to be the vehicle that will develop and operate the scheme.

On the surface, it is remarkable that some of the UK’s largest banks and fintechs - many of them direct competitors - have decided to join forces.

But in practice the reason is quite simple: no single participant has the scale to challenge Visa and Mastercard alone.

Payment schemes are network businesses. Their value comes from broad adoption, common standards, and industry-wide acceptance. Building a viable alternative requires coordination across the entire ecosystem.

This is an announcement that matters far beyond the UK.

In fact if Open Banking is ever going to become a meaningful competitor to cards, this is probably the only realistic path. A scheme that combines technology, commercial incentives, operating standards, and consumer protections.

The irony is that, in order to compete with card schemes, the industry is copying their structure.

One thing is certain: everyone in payments will be watching closely.

If UKPI succeeds, it could become the blueprint for Open Banking ecosystems around the world.

Opinions and graphics: Panagiotis Kriaris

4) Top AI Companies

Anthropic just landed a near-$1 trillion valuation. Just a small group of companies are in a race that goes beyond building the world’s leading AI model.

This is not a race for market share in the traditional sense.

Neither it is a race for selling AI.

It is a race to become the foundation layer on which future software, agents, and businesses will be built.

What is remarkable is that Anthropic overtook OpenAI in valuation despite entering the race later and operating for years in the shadow of ChatGPT:

• Anthropic was founded 6 years after OpenAI by former OpenAI researchers and executives, entering a market that OpenAI had already defined and where ChatGPT had become synonymous with AI.

• OpenAI had an overwhelming lead: the strongest brand, the largest user base, and the product that brought AI into the mainstream.

• Rather than compete head-on for consumer adoption, Anthropic focused on developers, coding, enterprise workflows, and business deployment.

• Anthropic’s bet was that long-term value would come from becoming embedded inside how companies build software and operate.

• That strategy made Anthropic a key player in some of the fastest-growing areas of AI spending, particularly coding and agentic workflows.

• The result: Anthropic has reached a $47 billion annualized revenue run rate, after growing revenue 5x in just the first five months of 2026 and more than 10x since last summer, surpassing OpenAI’s estimated $30–33 billion run rate.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗣𝗢 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲:

• The first major AI model company to go public could secure a decisive advantage. This is a race between Anthropic and OpenAI.

• Unlike previous software cycles, this is not just a race for customers. It is a race for compute, infrastructure, talent, and capital.

• A successful IPO could give one company access to tens of billions of dollars that can be immediately deployed into chips, data centers, acquisitions, and research. This could quickly widen the competitive gap.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁:

• Despite OpenAI and Anthropic dominating the headlines, there is fierce competition across the market.

• Leading AI companies are pursuing different strategies: OpenAI leads in consumer adoption, Anthropic focuses on enterprise deployment, xAI leverages distribution through X, Mistral positions itself as a European alternative, and DeepSeek competes on cost efficiency.

• The market is highly concentrated. While thousands of companies are building AI applications, only a handful have the resources required to compete at the frontier model layer.

The interesting thing is that while this race is often described as a competition between AI models, it increasingly looks like a competition between business models.

Opinions and graphics: Panagiotis Kriaris