Details of the application that FinTech giant stripe submitted for US bank licenses were revealed last week.
X had a lot of chatter about whether this meant stripes (already the world’s biggest personally valuable fintech).
The short answer is: no
The truth is, this is the first time Stripe has applied a banking license. But what may not be very clear is that the licensing scope is very narrow. This license does not mean that a fintech company will accept deposits. What that means is that if approved, Stripe will be allowed to process its own payments, in addition to having a partner representing payments for that process.
A Stripe spokesperson told TechCrunch: “We’ve grown our business over the past few years, and we’ve grown significantly in our banking and other partners. This application ensures that there are even more options to support our users.
Sources familiar with why the movement becomes its own bin said it gives the stripe “directly a little resilience to process payments.” Currently, its BIN sponsor (or sponsored bank) varies depending on geography.
In 2024, Wells Fargo (a former partner of Stripe) suddenly ended its Bin sponsorship business. There, banks support Fintechs access payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard. If banks do this, companies like Stripe are at risk of service disruption.
By being able to process your own payments, Stripe is less dependent on partners.
If approved, Stripe may have this banking license by the third quarter of 2025.