The new battleground for U.S. banking will be about who owns relationships, not who has the biggest balance sheet.
Netflix Inc. co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings said a few things in 2014 that American banks and fintechs should consider pinning on the breakroom wall or at the top of their main Slack channel.
“We were so obsessed with not being the next Kodak, the next AOL, about not being the company that clung to its roots and missed the big thing.” Hastings recalled: “We said if there’s a bias, we should be more aggressive; we have to be so aggressive it makes our skin crawl.”
Hastings was reflecting on Netflix’s failed 2011 decision to split its DVD and streaming businesses. The move turned him into a temporary laughingstock—one who, as history has made clear, had the last laugh.
It’s hard to imagine the CEO of a major American bank or fintech saying anything like this.
And that’s precisely the problem: While many U.S. banks and fintechs still think like financial institutions, Europe’s most ambitious challengers think like global technology companies.
No Time for Excuses
Global technology companies don’t wait for perfect conditions; they navigate imperfect ones.
That’s the playbook businesses such as Netflix, Uber Technologies Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. followed because international expansion was always part of the plan. These companies didn’t use legal complexity as an excuse for standing still, nor did they stop after achieving success.
Of course, tech isn’t banking. One could argue that the stakes are higher and the consequences of being too aggressive are greater.
But Revolut Group Holdings Ltd. co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky might politely disagree, because that’s exactly what London-based Revolut is doing as it blazes its global trail—politely disagreeing.
Amid exponential growth in Europe, the company has had to deal with different regulations, entrenched incumbents, and cultural barriers across nations—and, in some cases, even regions. For goodness’ sake, Revolut had to make Catalan, not Castilian (Spanish), the default language on its ATMs throughout Spain’s Catalonia region, which includes Barcelona.
The point is clear: The U.S. is hardly the only market where regulation and culture can feel like roadblocks. Fintechs such as Revolut have amassed considerable experience dealing with these obstacles.
As Yorick Naeff, head of innovation at ABN AMRO Bank NV, told me, Europe may talk about a single market, but companies still have “to conquer every market separately again and again.” Tax systems, know-your-customer rules, reporting requirements, consumer behavior, and language all change from country to country—as do the challenges along the way.
In other words, Europe is already a regulatory maze. Fundamentally, the U.S. isn’t a different challenge; it’s just a new one.
Recently, the Financial Times reported that the European Central Bank placed restrictions on Revolut in 2025 to slow down the company’s rapid approval of new products. In April, news broke that Italian authorities fined Revolut €11.5 million ($13.3 million) for “unfair commercial practices.”
Revolut’s response has been a mix of pushback, lip service, and concrete action, such as hiring experienced banking executives who can help the company scale globally while managing complex regulatory environments. None of this has stopped what Storonsky called the company’s “self-guided missiles”—small groups of employees who have the latitude to deploy new products rapidly with minimal corporate oversight.
Revolut has more than 70 million customers worldwide, up from 50 million in November 2024. Across France, Poland, Germany, the U.K., Ireland, Italy, and Spain, nearly one in three new financial accounts is with Revolut. Despite the regulatory friction, Revolut adds about four new Italian customers per minute. In Spain, where traditional banks are thought to have a stronghold, Revolut has more than 6 million accounts for a 13% penetration rate, making it the country’s fourth-largest bank by number of customers.
Revolut enters the U.S. battle-tested, armed with the necessary experience to navigate another complicated regulatory landscape, ready to seize the opportunity American banks and fintechs have left wide open.
Cash App: The Exception That Proves the Rule
To an observer in Europe, one thing is obvious: The U.S. still lacks a company trying to own the entire financial relationship.
Americans still piece together banking, payments, investing, foreign exchange, travel, insurance, and mobile connectivity across multiple platforms. That’s far less the case in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
Revolut, the U.K.’s Monzo Bank Ltd., Germany’s N26 AG, and the Netherlands’ bunq BV all extend well beyond traditional banking. Spain’s Banco Santander SA recently launched an eSIM directly in its app. Swedish buy-now-pay-later pioneer Klarna Bank AB is a fully licensed bank in the E.U. and has applied for its U.S. banking license.
None of these companies see banking as a collection of products. They want to be the primary financial relationship—the place where customers start, not occasionally visit.
Ironically, the closest the U.S. has to this model isn’t a traditional bank at all; it’s Cash App. Block Inc., the parent company of Cash App, deserves enormous credit for recognizing that consumer finance is about more than checking, high APYs, and commission-free stock trades. But as big as it has become, Cash App remains more narrowly focused than the expansive ecosystems emerging across Europe, many with their sights set on the U.S.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon also deserves credit for recognizing that something has changed. When he admitted he was jealous of Revolut’s speed, it didn’t take a linguist to read between the lines.
Sure, Dimon was complimenting a rival—as JPMorgan continues to compete more aggressively on Revolut’s European turf—but it appears he was sending a message to the U.S. banking establishment. By and large, the companies operating like tomorrow’s global consumer platforms aren’t American, and their speed and ambition are something to aspire to.
So why take on America now? As Naeff pointed out, part of the reason “is the size of the market; with even a small percentage market share, you can create an attractive business case.” Just as importantly, these companies believe they can compete not simply on rates or fees, but on experience.
Unless more American banks and fintechs start thinking like global tech companies—such as Netflix, Uber, and Amazon or, in their same sector, like Santander—Europe’s challengers won’t just enter the U.S. market; they’ll redefine what consumers come to expect from the companies they trust with their money.
Rocco Pendola is a U.S.-born journalist based in Spain covering finance, fintech, and investing.
