Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I’m Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula.
We kick things off with Whop, a creator marketplace that announced last week that anyone can launch a neobank on its platform in 15 minutes. Jason tried it. I unpack why a self-custody wallet built to function like a bank account opens a new kind of regulatory arbitrage.
Next, we get into a data breach at Revolut. As Jason reported, a hacker group threatened to sell identity information and account balances and transaction histories of about 680 Revolut users. The group then sent Revolut legal requests for their data (and Revolut complied, for about six months). That’s poor timing for a company with conditional approval for a U.S. bank charter.
From there, Chime has agreed to buy Stride, one of its partner banks, for $590 million in cash. That keeps the combined bank (roughly $7B in assets) below the $10B threshold that has long shaped Chime’s interchange-heavy business model. Jason weighs in on talking points that change when the roadmap does, and on how leverage can shift toward a fintech partner that outgrows its bank.
Plus, in our Can’t Let It Gos: an AI-generated ad for Kalshi in which a man suspects his girlfriend is cheating, only to learn she’s been betting on egg prices, and a termination letter (newly released through a FOIA request) for the official the OCC named in 2023 to run its Office of Financial Technology.
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This episode is brought to you by Increase.
Increase offers API-first banking for ambitious technology companies. Companies like Coast, Gusto, and Ramp rely on Increase technology to process more than $500B annualized in payments, card transactions, and loans. Learn more at https://increase.com/
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