BNPL and stablecoins scale
BNPL volumes have now topped $500 billion globally — and stablecoins are scaling via card rails into 'hundreds of millions' in monthly volume, showing crypto‑payments are moving mainstream (x.com). The same note says neobanks are expanding globally to compete for deposits while 'agentic commerce' reshapes how consumers buy and pay — a direct pressure on incumbent retail banking margins (x.com).
Sam Boboev published a Substack note arguing “agentic payments” shift intent from a human to software and that these flows delegate authentication and automate execution, forcing a redesign of the payments stack. (substack.com) PwC told executives that agentic AI will move discovery upstream into the payment funnel and requires banks to rethink customer engagement, monetization and fraud controls. (pwc.com) Artemis Analytics found crypto card volumes surged from roughly $100 million monthly in early 2023 to over $1.5 billion monthly by late 2025, a 106% CAGR that brought an $18 billion annualized market for card‑based crypto spending. (artemisanalytics.com) Visa announced U.S. settlement in Circle’s USDC on December 16, 2025, letting issuer and acquirer partners settle VisaNet obligations in USDC with initial participants including Cross River Bank and Lead Bank. (usa.visa.com) Market research firms project BNPL GMV above mid‑hundreds of billions for 2025 and industry revenue was about $12.5 billion in 2024, with Klarna reporting roughly $701 million revenue in Q1 2025 and more than 100 million active consumers. (fintechfutures.com) (businessofapps.com) (klarna.com) Neobanks are converting scale into deposit share: Revolut reported customer balances near $38 billion in its 2024 annual report, Nubank disclosed deposit bases north of $30 billion through 2025, and Chime reported processing over $2 billion in direct deposits monthly in 2025. (assets.revolut.com) (international.nubank.com.br) (coinlaw.io) Regulatory backdrops diverge: the UK moved to bring BNPL into the FCA’s Deferred Payment Credit regime effective July 15, 2026, while the U.S. CFPB withdrew its 2024 BNPL interpretive rule in May 2025 and indicated it will not reissue that rule. (fca.org.uk) (consumerfinance.gov) Consultancies and industry research say the intersection of stablecoin settlement, crypto cards and agentic commerce hands leverage to payment networks and digital challengers while compressing incumbent banks’ retail margins, and BCG lists tokenized deposits and stablecoins among strategic options for banks to respond. (fintechnews.ch) (artemisanalytics.com)
