Financials Market: Revolut Wins US Bank Charter, Wise Rejected

The OCC granted Revolut a conditional US bank charter, while rejecting Wise's application earlier in July. This regulatory divergence signals a shift in how US authorities are assessing foreign fintechs. Revolut, with 80 million users, a proprietary AI model trained on 40 billion banking events, and $2.3 billion in pretax profit, gains a federal on-ramp into American banking. The approval is seen as a strategic advantage, particularly through its PRAGMA credit-risk model, which no US neobank can replicate or acquire. This event potentially marks the decline of the sponsor-bank model for major fintechs, as larger players may now pursue their own charters. The article also discusses Anthropic's move to build in-house payments infrastructure, citing its rapid revenue growth from $9B to $65B annualized in seven months, making off-the-shelf billing inadequate. This includes insights into AI-specific fraud challenges and Stripe's $7B+ counter-move with OpenRouter.