British financial technology startup, Revolut plans to apply for a banking license in the United States in a matter of weeks, CNBC reported.

The fintech  Unicorn  Unicorn Unicorns represent privately held startup companies whose value exceeds $1 billion. The term itself was coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee back in 2013, with Unicorns since assuming the gold standard of companies.At the time of writing, approximately 465 unicorns exist, with standouts becoming ubiquitous in everyday life. This includes Ant Financial, DiDi, Airbnb, Stripe, Lyft, and Palantir Technologies, among many others.While all wildly successful, many unicorns are themselves the products of company buyouts, given its existing designation.For example, many of these companies’ valuation has swelled due to buyouts from large public companies. This has proven to be a recursive trend in with major industry players such as Apple, Facebook, and Google focusing on acquisitions rather than capital expenditures and development of internal investment projects.This strategy has played out over the past few years with large companies opting to instead augment their own technology portfolio via buyouts, rather than in-house developments.Unicorns Benefitting from New TechnologyOf note, many unicorns have succeeded without launching their own Initial Product Offering (IPOs), which run multiple risks. Traditionally, many large brands and companies have relied on such stock offerings as a means to bolster valuation and raise money. However, IPOs can result in the evaluation of a company if the public market thinks a company is worth less than its investor base.Unicorns also have benefitted from other factors, including the availability of new technology. Social media in this sense has been an integral component to unicorns’ success, helping achieve economies of scale.Furthermore, the advent of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology, platforms, and cloud computing has also played a key role in the growth of unicorns. Unicorns represent privately held startup companies whose value exceeds $1 billion. The term itself was coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee back in 2013, with Unicorns since assuming the gold standard of companies.At the time of writing, approximately 465 unicorns exist, with standouts becoming ubiquitous in everyday life. This includes Ant Financial, DiDi, Airbnb, Stripe, Lyft, and Palantir Technologies, among many others.While all wildly successful, many unicorns are themselves the products of company buyouts, given its existing designation.For example, many of these companies’ valuation has swelled due to buyouts from large public companies. This has proven to be a recursive trend in with major industry players such as Apple, Facebook, and Google focusing on acquisitions rather than capital expenditures and development of internal investment projects.This strategy has played out over the past few years with large companies opting to instead augment their own technology portfolio via buyouts, rather than in-house developments.Unicorns Benefitting from New TechnologyOf note, many unicorns have succeeded without launching their own Initial Product Offering (IPOs), which run multiple risks. Traditionally, many large brands and companies have relied on such stock offerings as a means to bolster valuation and raise money. However, IPOs can result in the evaluation of a company if the public market thinks a company is worth less than its investor base.Unicorns also have benefitted from other factors, including the availability of new technology. Social media in this sense has been an integral component to unicorns’ success, helping achieve economies of scale.Furthermore, the advent of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology, platforms, and cloud computing has also played a key role in the growth of unicorns. Read this Term, launched in 2015, is applying for a bank charter with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and California’s Division of Financial Institutions. Revolut has partnered with a US-licensed bank to roll out in America earlier this year and claims it has already attracted tens of thousands of local customers.

The launch of its app and service in the US market came in partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank. Before March 2020, Revolut’s services, which attracted over 10 million customers, have been available in the UK and Europe with US applicants previously being held on a waiting list.

The challenger bank already holds a Specialised Banking License from the Bank of Lithuania, which allows it to offer and passport a wider range of solutions to customers in Europe.

The five-year-old startup offers FX, stock and crypto brokerage as well as peer-to-peer  Payments  Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. Read this Term. A bank charter permits the company to operate an independent bank that will reduce reliance on third-party financial institutions and allows it to provide deposit-taking, custody and fiduciary services.

Revolut has been among a number of app-only fintech companies that are looking to branch into banking as they diversify their revenue stream and bring new services to their existing customers. Other financial technology companies including Square Inc, the payments company launched by Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Varo Money have already got the nod by federal and state regulators to open a bank.

Outside the payments domain, cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken also secured approval from a state regulator in the US to launch a crypto bank under an SPDI charter. Kraken applied for a bank charter under Wyoming’s special-purpose depository institution law.

The move comes as Revolut expands in new markets, most recently launching its app and service in Japan, which marks its first leap into a non-English speaking market. The European fintech startup has already completed a successful beta launch where the firm tested the service with 10,000 Japanese users. It originally secured regulatory approvals in the country back in 2018.