Fintech, revisited: What we got right, what changed, and what comes next

I can tell you, being a modern Pythia (the priestess who delivered prophecies in ancient Greece, not the Canadian drag queen), is not easy. Twenty months ago, I was dared to produce a set of educated guesses about the future of fintech, hoping that no one would hold me accountable anytime soon. Boy, was I wrong!
 
The initial article was written in April 2024, and kind people from Infobip recently asked me to revisit it and make a few comments. All in all, there were a few misses and even more hits, so it turned out way better than just flipping a coin.
 
The basic assumption was that fintech is not dead, and it proved to be the case; it’s livelier than ever. There were several IPOs in the sector as forecasted – namely Klarna, Chime and Circle. However, Stripe hasn’t gone public yet, and neither has Revolut, despite growing user base and significant profits. Revolut is boasting a new valuation of USD 75 billion, based on their profit growth forecast (it posted USD 1.4 billion in 2024) and whopping 70 million users worldwide, a number that has almost doubled since the original article.
 
Trends didn’t change much, either the digital euro is still brewing under the hood, but knowing the proverbial speed of EU bureaucrats, we’ll probably wait a few more years.
 
On the other hand, stablecoins were barely mentioned in the first article, yet they (USDT aka. Tether and USDC aka. Circle, representing over 80% of the market cap) are gaining traction. Currently, 98% of all issued stablecoins are pegged to the USD, which poses a systemic risk for Europe – but that’s another story. To counter this US dollar dominance, several large European commercial banks (including Unicredit, La Caixa, Raiffeisen and ING) have agreed to develop a euro-pegged stablecoin through a joint company, Qivalis. This effectively challenges the European Central Bank (ECB), while in the US, the FED supports startup stablecoin issuers, rather than commercial banks. It’s a terrible mess, and it seems Europe is losing ground.
 
I must point out that stablecoins are a different beast from the digital euro, which will be “real” money issued by the ECB (more like digital cash), not merely a digital representation of reserves in gold or government bonds, as is the case with stablecoins.
 
AI is a continuously evolving story, it has become more useful (and powerful, too) than it was 1.5 years ago, and several interesting trends are emerging. Agentic payments might replace cards at checkout in e- and m-commerce, and AI tools are starting to replace traditional browsers. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the new buzzword – it’s a powerful open standard enabling AI to connect with external tools and data.  
 
VISA has just released its 2025 report on payment trends, and it’s clear that card schemes are fighting back. They are reinventing themselves in a world of stablecoins, wallets and A2A (account-to-account) payments (which still haven’t lived up to the hype, by the way) because they risk becoming obsolete. Among other trends, VISA recognizes tokenization as its key strategic priority (tokens + passkeys) and the only viable way to compete with wallets. Currently, more than 50% of all Visa e-commerce transactions are tokenized, allegedly reducing fraud by >35% and increasing approvals by about 5%. In other words, schemes like VISA and Mastercard are here to stay, maintaining their global duopoly.
 
It’s an interesting and dynamic playing field, with new players and innovative solutions emerging as we speak. The European Union will need to move faster and act more proactively (particularly regarding stablecoins, digital euro, and the 28^th entity framework), while pushing forward the completion of its banking, monetary, and the capital markets union. Otherwise, it will continue to lag in the increasingly bipolar world led by the US and China.  

Božidar has extensive experience on both sides of the fintech world. After more than 20 years in executive positions within the banking sector, he decided to trade security for excitement and embarked on a challenging venture with a global fintech startup.

Currently he is dedicated to supporting the local startup community through conferences, mentorship, consultations, angel investments, and by engaging with a new Croatian VC fund, AYMO Ventures.