⚡ Fintech Frontlines: Banks Go AI-Native, Revolut Goes Global
| **Weekly Fintech Intelligence Briefing | 28 March 2026** |
| *Sourced exclusively from Finextra & FinTech Futures | All stories published 22–28 March 2026* |
1. Top Headlines
① Revolut Posts Record $2.3B Pre-Tax Profit for 2025 as Revenue Hits $6B | Finextra Pre-tax profit rose 57% to $2.3 billion in 2025 on revenues of $6 billion, driven in part by Revolut Business, which now accounts for 16% of total income. The results arrived alongside a milestone week: March 2026 marked Revolut’s successful exit from UK banking mobilisation, while a formal US national bank charter application was filed with the OCC, setting the stage for a full American banking push. 🔗 Finextra – Revolut 2025 Results
② HSBC Appoints First-Ever Chief AI Officer | Finextra HSBC announced on 23 March that David Rice will be appointed as its first Chief AI Officer, effective 1 April, in a role designed to provide clear enterprise leadership for AI adoption across the bank. HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery has highlighted AI as central to the bank’s goal of raising return on tangible equity to above 17% for 2026–2028, via savings from automating and streamlining its processes. 🔗 Finextra – HSBC Chief AI Officer | HSBC Official Release
③ Monument Bank to Launch UK’s First Tokenised Retail Deposit Programme | FinTech Futures Monument Bank, a UK challenger bank, plans to tokenise up to £250 million of retail customer deposits on the Midnight network, a public blockchain, in what it described as the first such move by a UK-regulated bank. Deposits will remain interest-bearing, fully backed, and protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 🔗 FinTech Futures – Monument Bank / Midnight
④ Solaris Cuts ~80 Jobs in AI-Native Banking Pivot | FinTech Futures German BaaS provider Solaris is cutting around 80 roles — approximately 20% of its 400-strong workforce — as new CEO Steffen Jentsch repositions the firm from an embedded finance platform into an “AI-native bank.” AI agents will handle operational processes, while humans remain responsible for control and governance, the company said. 🔗 FinTech Futures – Solaris
⑤ PSR Sets 2026/27 Plan: APP Fraud, Open Banking and Card Fees in Focus | FinTech Futures The PSR’s 2026/27 work programme commits to tackling APP fraud — including an independent evaluation of mandatory reimbursement — overseeing delivery of critical payments infrastructure under the National Payments Vision, and supporting the next phase of open banking. The regulator’s budget for 2026/27 is £26 million, 7% lower than the prior year, reflecting consolidation with the FCA. 🔗 FinTech Futures – PSR Annual Plan
⑥ Mastercard Agent Pay Goes Live Across Latin America | FinTech Futures Mastercard announced the successful execution of live, end-to-end agentic payment transactions across Latin America and the Caribbean, with issuers including Santander, Banco Galicia, Bancolombia, Davivienda, and Banamex completing fully authorised AI-initiated transactions across debit and credit cards. The milestone signals that agentic commerce has crossed from pilot to live production in a major region. 🔗 FinTech Futures – March Payments Round-Up
⑦ SumUp Partners with Upvest to Bring In-App Investing to Merchants | Finextra SumUp has partnered with Upvest to introduce in-app investing for merchants, extending its platform beyond payments and into embedded wealth tools for small business owners. The move deepens SumUp’s ambition to become a financial super-app for SMEs across Europe. 🔗 Finextra – Latest News
⑧ Aveni Selected by Quilter Financial Planning to Embed AI in Advice | Finextra Lloyds and Nationwide-backed fintech Aveni has been selected by Quilter Financial Planning, one of the UK’s largest financial advice networks, to support the introduction of AI into day-to-day advice operations. For the UK’s regulated advice sector, this marks a meaningful acceleration of AI-assisted financial planning at scale. 🔗 Finextra – Latest News
⑨ Revolut Files for US National Bank Charter with OCC and FDIC | Finextra Revolut filed for a US bank charter in March, which if granted would allow it to operate across all 50 US states under a single regulatory framework and offer FDIC-insured deposits, personal loans, and credit cards at scale. The charter application — filed under the name Revolut Bank US NA — is the most significant US regulatory milestone since the company was founded. 🔗 Finextra – Latest News
⑩ FCA Publishes 2026/27 Annual Work Programme | FinTech Futures / Finextra The FCA’s 2026/27 priorities include being a smarter regulator, supporting growth, helping consumers navigate their financial lives, and fighting financial crime — with specific initiatives including integrating AI into regulatory workflows to detect harm more effectively and speed up decision-making. The FCA is also calling for government action on 15 areas where regulatory perimeter changes are needed, including general-purpose AI used for financial guidance. 🔗 Finextra – Regulatory Digest
2. In-Depth Highlight: Revolut — Ten Years In, Finally a Global Bank
Ten years after launching as a prepaid travel card, Revolut delivered 2025 results that few in traditional banking had dared to imagine: revenue climbing 46% to £4.5 billion and profit before tax surging 57% to £1.7 billion, with net profit reaching £1.3 billion — its fifth consecutive profitable year. Retail customers grew by 16 million in 2025, the most in any single year, bringing the total to 68.3 million; as of early 2026, the company reports crossing 70 million users. The week’s announcement layered on two transformational regulatory developments: March 2026 marked Revolut’s successful exit from UK banking mobilisation — enabling it to provide full banking services to its 13 million UK customers — while a formal US national bank charter application was filed simultaneously. Investors are closely watching Revolut’s plans for an IPO, which could value the company at around $100 billion, against a recent funding round valuation of $75 billion. The strategic implication is hard to overstate: a neobank once dismissed as a travel-card novelty is now a regulated full-stack bank in its home market, with credible ambitions to replicate that model in the world’s largest financial market. For incumbents, the data point that should sting most is market share: in markets like Spain, France, and Italy, Revolut now captures a significant share of newly opened primary bank accounts — not secondary wallets, but salary-inflow banking relationships.
3. Market & Industry Insight: AI Moves from Pilot to Production — and So Do the Job Cuts
The week of 22–28 March crystallised a theme that has been building for months: AI in financial services is no longer a strategy document — it is a restructuring mandate. HSBC’s appointment of a dedicated Chief AI Officer, tasked with making generative AI tools available to all staff globally, represents a structural shift in how major banks are organising around the technology. The move is not isolated. NatWest, Barclays, and Lloyds have all expanded AI leadership structures in recent months, and the pattern is consistent: AI is moving from the CTO’s remit into a standalone C-suite function with a direct line to the CEO and a mandate tied to return-on-equity targets.
Solaris’s restructuring tells the other side of the same story. The BaaS provider is axing around 80 roles as it repositions into what it calls an “AI-native bank,” developing an operating model in which AI agents handle operational processes while humans retain control and governance. This is the BaaS sector’s clearest signal yet that the race is no longer about API connectivity — it is about who can deliver the most automated, lowest-cost financial infrastructure at scale. For embedded finance players across Southeast Asia and Europe, Solaris’s pivot raises a direct strategic question: is your platform on a path to AI-native efficiency, or are you building on an architecture that will be repriced out of the market?
On the consumer side, Mastercard’s live agentic payment transactions across Latin America — executed by AI agents initiating fully authorised purchases on behalf of cardholders — demonstrate that agentic commerce has crossed the line from proof-of-concept into regulated, real-world operation. With Visa completing a parallel pilot with Santander across five LatAm markets earlier in March, both major networks have now validated the technical and consent frameworks needed for AI-driven commerce at scale. The next battleground is who defines the governance and liability standards — and the PSR’s and FCA’s 2026/27 plans suggest regulators are already watching closely.
4. Company & Startup Spotlight
Revolut
Europe’s most valuable private fintech offers a super-app spanning banking, crypto, stock trading, travel, insurance, and business finance across 40 markets. Group revenue increased 46% to $6 billion in 2025, with the lending portfolio growing 120% year-on-year to $2.9 billion — consisting primarily of unsecured personal loans, credit cards, and a nascent mortgage portfolio. With a full UK banking licence now in hand, a US charter filed, and a £10 billion five-year investment plan announced, Revolut is the clearest proof point in global fintech that challenger banks can achieve durable, scaled profitability without sacrificing growth. Executives and investors in any market Revolut is entering — including Singapore, Australia, and the US — should be treating it as a primary banking competitor, not a neobank footnote.
Monument Bank
A Bank of England-authorised UK challenger serving over 100,000 mass-affluent clients with around £7 billion in deposits. Through its partnership with the Midnight Foundation, Monument is converting interest-bearing savings into digital tokens that mirror traditional deposits one-to-one, remaining fully backed, redeemable in pounds sterling, and safeguarded by the FSCS. The longer-term roadmap spans savings, tokenised investment products including private market funds, and Lombard-style lending — a full-stack tokenised banking model within a regulated framework. Monument’s affiliate Monument Technology also plans to offer this tokenised deposit functionality through its Banking-as-a-Service platform, meaning its blueprint could propagate to other institutions.
5. Regulatory & Policy Watch
-
PSR 2026/27 Plan — Fraud, Fees, and Open Banking: The PSR’s 2026/27 work programme focuses on tackling high card fees (including cross-border interchange), maintaining mandatory APP fraud reimbursement protections, and supporting open banking innovation and competition across UK payments. Notably, the PSR’s consolidation into the FCA continues — a structural change that will reshape UK payments oversight over the next 18 months.
-
FCA Flags AI-Driven Financial Guidance as Regulatory Gap: The FCA’s 2026/27 perimeter report identifies the growing use of general-purpose AI for guidance on borrowing, saving, and investing as a significant new issue falling outside the current regulatory boundary — signalling a forthcoming push for legislative clarity as consumer AI tools proliferate.
-
Revolut Exits UK Banking Mobilisation: March 2026 marked Revolut’s successful completion of its UK banking mobilisation period, allowing it to provide full regulated banking services to its 13 million UK customers — including lucrative lending and deposit protection — for the first time. This regulatory milestone took years to achieve and has significant implications for UK high street banks facing a now fully-armed digital competitor.
6. Quote of the Day
“2025 was another landmark year. We have built a diversified, resilient business that is profitable at scale, providing the foundation for our next phase of growth. As we transition into a truly global bank, we are proving that our technology-driven operating model continues to drive rapid expansion and record profitability. A decade into this journey, we have only just begun to show what is possible.”
— Nik Storonsky, Co-Founder & CEO, Revolut (Source: Revolut 2025 Annual Report, 24 March 2026)
7. What’s Next
- 30 March 2026: ECB DLT collateral eligibility rule goes live — the first major Eurosystem integration of blockchain-issued assets into central bank operations. Watch for early institutional adoption signals from European banks and clearing houses.
- 15 April 2026: FinTech Futures webinar — Agentic AI in Banking: Exploring Key Applications and Best Practices for Implementation — a critical briefing as agentic payments move from pilot to production globally.
- Q2 2026: PSR’s independent Frontier Economics evaluation of APP fraud mandatory reimbursement (one year in) due for publication — results will determine whether the regime faces revision.
- 2026 (ongoing): Revolut US bank charter review by the OCC and FDIC — likely the most consequential single regulatory decision in global neobanking this year.
- H2 2026: Monument Bank’s Phase 2 tokenised investment products (private equity, commodity funds) scheduled to launch on the Midnight network — the first retail test of on-chain real-world asset access at a regulated UK bank.
