Future of Fintech: Revolut Goes Bigger in Australia
Future of Fintech - Edition #183 (1st - 15th Feb‘ 26)
Fintech is in its scale-first era⚡Growth is being pushed through new geographies and big buyouts, while payments stretch across borders with faster routes and new rails. At the same time, AI agents are stepping into decision-making, and the foundations are getting tightened for what comes next.
✔️ Scale moves across markets
✔️ Faster cross-border money flow
✔️ Agents and stronger controls
Ready to connect the dots? 👀
🚨 Featured Story of the Week:
Revolut Survives Australia 🔥
Revolut crossed 1 million retail customers in Australia and plans to invest nearly $400M over the next five years. That stands out in a market where several local neobanks struggled to reach sustainable scale, with some exiting or being absorbed after funding and regulatory pressure.
Revolut’s approach was to win on everyday pain points first. It led with FX, travel, and international transfers, and says Australians have saved $250M+ in FX fees. It also followed a phased regulatory path, securing an AFSL in 2020 and a credit licence in 2022, while building local depth with a 100+ team and 30+ Australia-specific features.
Now it is expanding the footprint beyond retail:
Launched merchant acquiring inside Revolut Business, supporting online, in-person, and account-to-account payments within the business account.
Reported a 235% increase in monthly Revolut Business transaction volume in Australia over the past 12 months, signalling rising merchant adoption.
Want the deeper context? WhiteSight’s Revolut Deep Dive Report 2025 explains the strategy behind Revolut’s global expansion, from subscriptions and licensing to payments and SME growth.
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The idea is to bring more structure and speed to a process that is often research-heavy and fragmented, by using specialised agents to assist across sourcing, diligence support, and execution workflows.
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Edition 183 is your front-row seat to the digital revolution transforming how we move money.
The Week’s Hot 10!♨️🔟
Scale Plays, Different Paths
⤷ Revolut passed 1 million retail customers in Australia and plans to invest nearly AUD $400M over the next five years.
⤷ NatWest agreed to acquire wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7B to scale its private banking and wealth business.
SME Money Management
⤷ TBC Uz launched Business and Business Pro tiers, a subscription-based SME banking service.
⤷ Intuit integrated BNPL via Affirm into QuickBooks Payments for eligible U.S. merchants.
Payments Go Borderless
⤷ Visa Direct and UnionPay International enabled cross-border remittances and B2C payouts into mainland China.
⤷ Yuno integrated BVNK’s stablecoin rails to allow merchants to accept and process stablecoin transactions.
Agents Enter the Workflow
⤷ Klarna joined Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), enabling AI shopping agents to interact with merchants and payment providers.
⤷ Goodfin launched Goodfin Go, an AI agent platform for private-market and pre-IPO investing aimed at accredited investors.
Building Stronger Foundations
⤷ Sumsub joined the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) to support more secure open finance in North America.
⤷ ila Bank migrated core retail and lending systems to Temenos Core Banking on AWS.
Now, for the ‘byte’-sized fintech buzz –
Digital banking is adding business control layers and regulated digital-asset capabilities, expanding what customers can manage from one platform beyond basic accounts.
STC Bank launched a Business Portal for businesses, entrepreneurs and freelancers, providing a single digital platform to onboard, manage users/authorisations, and run services such as payments, remittances, statements, and payroll.
Zand Bank partnered with Ripple to explore regulated stablecoin and blockchain-based use cases including support for RLUSD in Zand’s regulated digital-asset custody, AEDZ–RLUSD liquidity, and issuing AEDZ on XRPL.
Digital payments is improving in-person acceptance at both ends of the market, with simpler devices for small sellers and more reliable in-store infrastructure for large merchants.
SumUp introduced the Solo Lite card reader for UK merchants, a low-cost (£25) and portable device aimed at helping small businesses accept card payments
Adyen partnered with Starbucks to power its in-store payments across 943 stores in the UK, Austria, and Switzerland, deploying around 2,375 payment terminals.
Digital wealth is focusing on institutional workflows, bringing cash investment access and market-grade trading and surveillance upgrades into modern platforms.
Clearwater Analytics integrated with TreasurySpring to let institutional clients access 1,000+ fixed-term cash investment products directly within the Clearwater platform.
Osaka Exchange selected Nasdaq to upgrade its next-generation derivatives trading infrastructure using Nasdaq Eqlipse Trading and Nasdaq Market Surveillance.
Embedded finance is widening access to credit through platforms, combining faster working-capital for small businesses with pay-over-time options expanding into new countries.
Adyen partnered with Fresha to launch Fresha Capital, offering fast working-capital loans to SMBs, live in seven markets with $5.5M+ in loans issued so far.
Affirm and Wayfair expanded their partnership to the UK and Canada, allowing approved Wayfair shoppers in both markets to split purchases into instalments at checkout.
Open finance is being used to automate switching and improve decisions, enabling digital credit portability and applying AI to turn consented data into real-time risk and lending signals.
CAIXA launched a fully digital personal-loan portability process via Open Finance, enabling customers to transfer eligible personal loans to CAIXA more quickly and securely.
Belvo launched an AI-powered Intelligent Ecosystem of open finance tools in Latin America, designed to turn consented data and payment signals into real-time decisions for use cases such as lending, payments, and fraud/risk management.
Fintech infrastructure is strengthening the foundations, pairing real-time financial crime controls with cloud-based core modernisation to support faster, more reliable services
SME Bank partnered with Flagright to centralise real-time transaction monitoring, watchlist screening, and investigations, aiming to strengthen AML controls
Banco de la Microempresa S.A (Mibanco) selected Temenos SaaS to modernize its core banking infrastructure and expand access to finance for small businesses across the country.
And that’s a wrap 👋
We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Weekly Fintech Brew!
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Revolut’s Australia move is definitely one to watch.